


The Night Before Critmas ~Critical Role~ Fanfic

by DoctorGemini



Series: Critical Role One shots [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28394697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorGemini/pseuds/DoctorGemini
Summary: It was the night before Christmas, nearly all the elves have been living in the bathrooms and.... SOMEONE KIDNAPPED SANTA CLAUSE?! OC
Series: Critical Role One shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079567





	1. Characters & Backgrounds

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I am making a fanfic of Critical Role’s One shot Christmas special The Night Before Critmas. I do not own anything or anyone but my character and I have been love with Critical Role and have listened to it along with my sister) we even played a bunch of one shots ourselves) and I have decided to make fanfics of the one shots and the campaigns with one extra character that is my own! But til I do the campaigns I will be doing the one shots as practice! 
> 
> Yes I will be rolling dice for my rolls (no cheating I swear!) hopefully one day I will join them on their adve- nah I am just kidding! Like I have shot among the millions of Critters but anyhow I hope you enjoy and if you have no idea what I am talking about; Critical Role is where a bunch of crazy voice actors come together to play DND aka Dungeons and Dragons. Check them out on Youtube called Critical Role. They have two campaigns, one shots and many more things on their channel and even do charities during their games.

Characters & Backgrounds:

**Holly Snowflake** – Ranger (Hunter)- my character

She usually works at the baking factory making all the Christmas sweets and snacks, but with everything pretty much finished and almost all of the other elves sick, Holly has volunteered to help the toy working factory. To her surprise someone close to her heart is working there, how will she concentrate on working with him distracting her?

“Oh, son of a nutcracker!”

**Arthur** **Fizzlebottom** –Rogue (Theif)- Taliesin Jaffe

He is a can don’t elf; he usually puts off taking on any kind of job, but unfortunately, the one thing he does excel in is getting into trouble. In an effort to drill some responsibility into him, his father, Aloysius Fizzlebottom, greased enough hands with Christmas cookies to get his son the job on the factory line.

“I wish I had the flu.”

**Chutney Chocolatecane** –Rogue (Mastermind)- Travis Willingham

Not only the senior workshop elf, but also one of the oldest elves in the North Pole. As knowledgeable as he is cantankerous, he misses the halcyon days of yore; when toys were made by hand and built exclusively from wood and metal, and came with inherent physical danger or choking hazard. Lawn darts? That was his idea!

“Those were the good old days, you damn whippersnappers!”

**Klaus Prigmen** –Fighter (Battle Master)- Matt Mercer

He never came within 50 feet of a toy till last week! When the entire workforce got sick. Village Security is his bag and he’s the best there is at what he does. Christmas Village is a place of goodness and cheer, but it’s surrounded by some of the wildest territories known to man or elf and it’s not uncommon for the occasional polar bear or lookie-loo to come sticking their nose over the edge of the village borders. He is the hard-boiled elf who leads the watch and freakin deadly with a candy cane, too.

“Two, two candy canes.”

**Bundlestein Sprucenburg** – Fighter (Samurai) - Sam Riegel

He works in the reindeer stables, unfortunately, the bottom of the pecking order over there, and spends a decent amount of time raking out Prancer and Vixen’s stalls. However, he is good with a wrench and keeps Santa’s sleigh in working order too, so while a little meek and neurotic, he’s not without his uses.

“I-I If you say so, I’ll take your word for it.”

**Cranberry Stockings** –Cleric (War Domain)- Marisha Ray

The local legend! The bearded wonder of the North! There is no bigger elf celeb here at the pole. Not only a peerless worker on the lumberjack crew but a three-time reigning champion of the timber sports Olympics in both Christmas Tree hauling and speed chopping. The duel-colored beard sprouting from their chin almost serves as a visual manifestation of your unstoppable spirit.

“I like the local traditions, you know, so I try and keep it traditional.”

**Ellory Jinglegumdrop** – Cleric (Life Domain)- Julie Nathanson

The bundle of cheer, noob, and absolute fangirl; she has dreamt her whole life of working in the shop. She has filled endless journals in her youth with her dreams of being a part of the inner circle. The journals led to fan fiction, the fan fiction led to internships, and at last, the impossible happened. She got tapped for the big league! But in all her daydreaming, she didn’t expect to kick off her entry to the top on a wave of projectile vomiting, but here she is.

“It shimmers, though!”

**Nutmeg Gingersnap** –Wizard- Ashley Johnson

Previously long-absent elf, not many here at the pole ever remember her much. She’s been off living in New York City, working as an emissary to the offices at Macy’s and doing a little bit of intelligence work for Santa; keeping a bead on the ever-involving taste in toys. Unfortunately, her cover was compromised, and Santa had her pulled from the department store and whisked back to the pole. The Big Apple changed Nutmeg, though, and it’s been a hard marshmallow to swallow for her workshop companions this week.

“What the fuck are you looking at?”

DM and everyone else – Liam O’Brien

Check it out on Youtube they are all amazing! And yes I will be rolling my dice, NO CHEATING!


	2. Chapter 1 - Kidnap Mister Sandy Claws?!

Oh, happy day! It's that time once again.

It's Christmas Eve around the world! All across the globe, little children are brushing their teeth, slipping on pajamas, and getting ready to be tucked in all snug in their beds, only to listen intently for the sound of sleigh bells in the air before they finally, finally, you're welcome, Mom and Dad, drift to sleep while visions of sugar plums dance in their heads.

From the sunny coasts of Honolulu to the hustle and bustle in the streets of Manhattan, to the cheerily decorated shops and lanes of Dublin to the frenetic hum of Tokyo, magic is in the air.

And nowhere more so than the North Pole! It's cold and clear on the top of the world tonight. The Ice and snow of the Earth's frosted crown are shining like a diamond, and the stars twinkling down on its beauty and serenity... or seeming serenity for as we draw our focus down, down, down, closer to the pole, and wind our way to Santa's workshop, things are anything but calm.

Just like every year, Santa's workshop is a flurry of activity in these final hours before old Chris Kringle takes to the skies, but for the first time in centuries, almost all of the denizens of Christmas Village are down for the count.

A particularly virulent strain of the flu has ripped its way through the population and almost every single sprightly-eyed elf here s been emptying their bowels from both exits for days.

The good news is, the production line has been ahead of schedule all year, but that lead time has dwindled away over the last week teetering dangerously close to falling short at the final hour and there has been a mad dash in the last several days with a hodgepodge skeleton crew of eight who have been thrown together out of desperation to finish up the year's toy supply in time for Santa's big night.

One of them being Holly Snowflake, a young elf who works in the baking factory and shop but with everything done early before everyone got smacked with the flu and wanting to see what it was like, she volunteered at the toy factory to help out as best she can. Though she was not super cheerful or jolly like some of the elves Holly is known to be kind and helpful wherever she goes, it does help though that she sneaks broken or leftover cookies to everyone including the jolly old elf himself.

Now though she is at the toy shop with seven other elves; there was an eighth elf, Bell Mistletoes but she get caught with the flu as well.

The first to catch Holly's eye was the local legend Cranberry who of course is famous in the sports but also had a very festive beard and is hard not to notice plus they come to the shop for some eggnog and peanut butter blossoms. There was her meek friend Bundlestein, Bundles to her who hesitantly volunteered after Holly did and seemed to be doing well with making toys though he wouldn't believe it if she told him who had a weakness for Nutella swirled meringue cookies

The third elf in her surprise was Klaus, the head of security that came by the bakery factory to make sure that someone hasn't been running away with the chocolate or any other expensive spices, though he will accept a super spicy ginger cookie from Holly if he was in the mood but she could guess with the workers out of commission, Santa probably had to call him in. Now Ellory maybe a newbie in the toy factory business and Holly didn't know her well but she sure makes up for it with the cheer in her heart and voice that Holly didn't really look forward to super early in the morning, and never says no to sugar cookie cut-outs in the form of Santa or Christmas trees.

Now the elf that no one remembers, Nutmeg Gingersnap, comes in daily for a strong cup of cocoa every morning and angels on high if you dare ask her how she is. Apparently, she lived in New York for a while and well she started becoming local. Of course, everyone knows Chutney Chocolatecane and if you didn't you were told exactly who he was be it from himself or anyone else. He never comes to the shop once since she has worked at the baking shop and even her boss Aloicious Fizzlebottom has never seen him come in.

 _Speaking of Mr. Fizzlebottom._ She thought as she looked over to her side of the toy-making table.

There sat her boss's son, Arthur Fizzlebottom, out of all the elves in the factory aside from Nutmeg and Klaus; Arthur looks absolutely miserable and definitely didn't want to be working at the toy factory. Holly didn't see him all that much but he always has a frown on his face and when she did, she always felt her heart flutter and her face warming.

Holly has had a crush on Arthur since they both started St. Nicholas High when she saw him climb the cliffside on the edge of Christmas Village just to get his mother some flowers that she likes that grew only there, now in their last year. They were friends Holly has yet to say anything about her feeling for him but it didn't help that he was pretty much ran in a different crowd than her and got into a lot of trouble. Now here he was sitting beside her sulking and muttering to himself as he works on a toy and Holly didn't have the courage to say anything.

Not the best of circumstances, but hey, it is still Christmas and it's hard not to feel a little spring in her step even if the clock is ticking, and quotas are on the line. However, a fire crackles in the corner, the sound of tools, hinges, and sandpaper going to town fill the room with a quiet chatter of activity while the smell of a fresh-cut tree and candy canes wafts through the workroom... but you know quiet tension still radiating throughout the group as the countdown clock on the wall is reading.

**"35 MINUTES TILL GO TIME!"**

No pressure or anything.

"Oh fuck." Holly hears coming from Chutney as he turned goes back to work.

The other look to the clock as well and react with distraught gasps and tired groans while Holly herself gives a sigh and turns back to her painting another cat figurine playing with ballet slippers with words written 'Live the Dream.' in gold paint. She gave a little snort and catching movement from the corner of her eye looks over to see Arthur looking away from her and concentrating on a basketball.

Holly blinks in surprise that Arthur is even looking her way, to begin with maybe he was just thinking of something.

"We are never going to get everything finished, ugh my dad is going to kill me! After he is done puking anyways." He jeers as he rolls the basketball away from him and reaches over for the almost finished plush of Edward 'Edge' from FFIV, sewing the rest of the scarf around the ninja's neck.

Holly frowns at this as she places the finished cat figurine to dry. "You shouldn't say things like that Arthur, it is Christmas after all, you should have more faith in the spirit of Christmas."

Arthur snorts. "With Miss Lantern over there I am sure the spirit is as strong as it gets."

Lantern being Ellory, a nickname she had gotten in school for her bright personality and her strong faith in the spirit and Santa himself.

She rolls her eyes, throwing leftover fluff in Arthur's direction. "It doesn't mean you have to be such a Krampus besides with the top shelf elf leading the way there won't be problems."

The fluff mere floated down in the middle of them making Arthur smiling in amusement then turned his eyes to hers. "I bet you all your snowball cookies something is going to go wrong in the next few minutes Holls."

"I bet your mother's red velvet hot chocolate recipe that everything will be just fine and we got a deal!" She counters with a grin bringing her hand out.

Arthur hisses playfully then shakes her hand. "Oh now you playing dirty Holls, but deal!"

From beyond the heavily frosted-over windows the sound of footsteps crunching through the snow outside. Klaus is immediately on high alert going straight for his candy cane swords and looking at the door ready while everyone turned to it. The door clatters open with a jingle as a blast of frigid air swirls over the elves, shaking the Christmas tree in the corner something fierce, making everyone shiver from the cold, and in walks the oldest elf in all the North Pole, Bigsby Quimberump.

Surprisingly Bigsby is Chutney's senior, he served as the right hand of the Claus for centuries, and while frail in frame, he is the engine that keeps the operation going year after year. He is only the other elf besides the seven that were in the factory now who does not have the flu, and he is showing a little weariness after a week of tanking on this Christmas.

Arthur and Holly disengage their hands and started back on work before the boss could see that they were not getting things done.

He cheerfully closes the door laughing as he asks. "How you all hanging? Everybody still of good cheer?"

"Oh yeah!" Cranberry crows with Ellory sighing in admiration beside them.

"Eh." Klaus shrugs alongside Nutmeg.

Holly catches Arthur rolling his eyes, crossing his arms frowning in annoyance.

 _I swear he could be the Grinch's son if he were green._ She thinks shaking her head and looking back to Bigsby.

"It's cold out there." he says as he warms himself up by the fire. "That air is biting straight through my bony old ass."

If Holly could spit take she would have; elves were not allowed such language at this time of year, bad juju and all that. Plus she had never heard him swear in all her life!

"Listen, Santa will be coming over shortly." Bigsby announces. "He's just stopping in to check on the missus right now to see if she's able to keep any food down yet. I think she was worshipping the porcelain alter all last night poor dear."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Chutney grumbles sadly.

Holly cringes in sympathy for Mrs. Clause and reminds herself to make some hot apple cider for her when she gets better.

Bigsby points at Chutney nodding "You and I know what's that like, but that comes with the later centuries."

"That's right, yeah, I usually catch it in my pants first thing in the morning." Chutney says in agreement, making everyone around him wrinkle their noses in disgust.

"That's why Santa invented elf diapers." Bigsby grins.

"Okay, or he could retire some elves or I do not know to make doctors a profession?" Holly mutters to herself.

Of course, there are healers around the village but there wasn't a doctor who could help the elderly elves which annoyed Holly a little since there were many seniors still working in the shops around them.

She hears a snort beside her before they said. "If all the old koots in this joint retired nearly all the factories would be down including the old man."

Holly looks over to Arthur, her face turning red again as she stutters. "I- I just think there are better ways to fix those types of situations that is all."

Arthur smirks at Holly shaking his head and turning back to Bigsby, leaving Holly to squeal in her head in happiness that he talked to her and horrified that he heard her.

"Let me see your progress." Bigsby's voice sounds over her internal squealing. He looks about at everyone's work before muttering. "Aww, jiggling jingle bells, we're cutting it close here. Stay on task, people! I'll tell ya what, I'm gonna go to the kitchens and grab some of that nice Holly's cocoa from the stove for you lot. Keep at it."

Holly blushes as everyone looks to her the moment he is out the door before everyone is all returned to the final stages of the current toy they're building; Vox Machina action figures with vestige grip. She had seen a few episodes on her laptop and she quite enjoys them so she surprisingly has no problems working on Percy De Rollo III.

**(Performance Check:**

**Chutney: 9**

**Nutmeg: 8**

**Klaus: 6**

**Bundles: Nat 20**

**Cranberry: 8**

**Ellory: 19**

**Arthur: 20**

**Holly: 18)**

Holly smiles at the finished figurine and looks around to see that Ellory, Bundles, and Arthur's own figures were just as excellently done... the other three on the other hand.

"Listen." Nutmeg exclaims seeing the youngsters look at her not so well figurine. "I don't make toys, this is too hard!"

"I never watch Dice, Camera, Action, I don't know what the fuck that is." Klaus swipes the toy to the side in frustration.

"Told ya Holls you owe me." Arthur whispers while smiling victory.

Holly on the other hand blinks at Klaus but says nothing as the doors open again and Bigsby reappears, carrying a heavy tray of cocoa, and does a double-take looking at the tree in the corner seeing ornaments falling all over from his earlier entry.

"Oh, cripes, weren't any of you gonna tell me the star has fallen off the top of the tree?!" he exclaims looking at all of them. "Holly come over here and help give the lot their hot cocoa since you made it yourself."

"Of course Mr. Quimberump." She gets up from her seat, walking over to the old elf, and takes the tray.

"I hope not, I cut down quite a strong one over there.." Cranberry boasts.

Holly pauses in her giving Klaus the cocoa looking over her shoulder to them. "He said the star Cranberry, not the tree itself."

"Me think Miss Three-time winner has pine needles in her ear." Klaus comments quietly taking a sip of his bitter cocoa, the way he likes it.

Holly gives him a smirk of amusement before moving to the next of her fellow workers.

"Well, no wonder nothing's going on in here." Bigsby says as he shuffles over to the tree and picks up the familiar, to everyone in the room, clockwork star from the ground.

The star of Pure Intent; has a decent sized ruby set at its center and golden cogs ticking quietly behind the latticework design of its outer shell, and the ruby is pulsing subtly.

"How do you expect to get these toys finished in time without this blasted star on the tree?!" He scolds look at the lot of them before looking over to Arthur in the corner who didn't look like he was listening at all. "Get this back up there Fizzlebottom! Get this to the top of the tree, do your job."

Arthur rolls his eyes as he gets up. "Oh, fine."

"You listen to him, he's been here a long, long time-"

"Whatever, old man." Arthur scoffs as he takes the star from Bigsby's hand.

With a sigh of annoyance and shake to his body to loosen up, Arthur with his eyes closed does the craziest tricks climbing up the tree, and places the star at the top, without even looking at it, and dabs on the way down.

Holly watches on in awe, holding the tray to her chest. "Oh wow, that was amazing."

"Yeah! You are so good!" Ellory cheers, smiling widely at Arthur. "You're so good! I've been waiting to watch you do that and that was amazing!"

Holly looks over the cheerful elf and frowns slightly as Arthur shakes off the compliment. "Thanks, I guess, but you know, just keep it cool."

"Yeah, well I think his dad paid for parkour classes for him anyways." Nutmeg sneers taking a sip of her hot cocoa.

"Oh my god! That's amazing!" Ellory exclaims her eyes sparkling as they gaze at Arthur.

Arthur on the other hand frowns at Nutmeg and well immaturely says. "Well your dad id, whatever man."

"I don't have a dad." She interrupts, not looking away from her cup.

Everything goes quiet.

"... That's cool." he says awkwardly as he walks away. "All right maybe."

Everyone looks at Arthur weirdly at his words as he takes a seat back at his station.

Holly waits till he sits down before turning to Nutmeg and says. "Actually, he practices a lot in the gym and outside, the classes are a bit low level for him."

Nutmeg raises an eyebrow at Holly. "And how would you know that?"

Nervously Holly shrugs. "We do parkour class together and I have seen him climb up the houses and lampposts. Heck back when that strange dark tall shadow was disturbing the Village a few days ago, I saw him following the tracks all over. It was really amazing to watch."

Klaus gave an impressed look, looks over to Arthur with consideration while Nutmeg just shrugs and returns to her seat as well after placing the tray on the table. She sees Arthur give her a little nod, she can only assume it is for sticking up for him and so she gives a smile back as she sits down.

Just at that moment, a little brass medallion tinkles on Bigsby's belt and he mutters. "Oh, for the love of-"

Pulls it up on a chain and eyeballs it, and Klaus tilts his head at it in curiosity.

"Oh, what you got going on over there?" he asks.

Bigsby snaps. "Ah, sit tight, Prigman, these old bones ain't done yet, probably some penguins or something out on the lawn. Keep working!"

Klaus shrugs. "I don't know, you were complaining about the cold out there, you been in here long enough, you haven't adjusted and maybe you're not fit for the outside, you know, maybe someone like me could go ahead and take up their post again and not worry about this fucking present bullshit!"

 _And he is at it again._ Holly thinks with a tired sigh, fiddling with one of the dresses a doll was going to wear. Klaus has been trying all month to get out of the toy factory and back to his post, noting liking the whole sitting and fiddling with toys he had no experience with and would rather be outside than inside.

However, it seems his complaints are making Bigsby very frustrated. "Listen to me, I didn't get to be head elf by sticking my dick in tree holes."

_... okay didn't need that image, ew._

"Well I did that too, but I did a lot of other things!" He shouts making everyone look at him in horror. "So you sit there and I'll do my job."

Klaus puts his hands out in front of him. "I'm not disrespecting your ability to vanish into various shrubbery, but what I would like to do is not be dealing with this fucking thing!"

In frustration he breaks the toy on the table, Chutney looks over at the angry elf and wags his finger at him.

"Listen, crafting toys is an honor, it's a privilege!"

Holly and Arthur pretty much synchronize as they lean their faces on their left hand watching in boredom, Bundles and Cranberry were staring in a daze, Ellory is looking worried over the raised voices and Nutmeg kept looking at Chutney in confusion.

Klaus frowns at the old elf before taking a piece of labeling stick. "Look at this, I fix it right here; some assembly required, there, go, ship it, we're done!"

Chutney scoffs. "Assembly, I remember when toys were one piece of wood!"

"Might I just remind you that some of us are very happy to be indoors doing anything and not out in the stables shoveling the excrement of Vixen." Bundles speaks up for the first time, adjusting his glasses. "I think you should appreciate what we're doing here. I mean, it's an honorable position... I'm sorry-"

"Then go ahead and fix it for me." Klaus deadpans, gesturing to the broken toy.

"Okay." Bundles didn't even argue.

"Wanna fix mine to?" Nutmeg asks. "This is why I don't, I got demoted from making toys, I don't know how to do any of this!"

"Sure, if you want me to, I will." Bundles says as he holds Klaus's broken toy.

Holly facepalms at her dear friends' pushover behavior. "Oh Bundles."

Chutney didn't look impressed. "Oh yeah, you're just gonna take on the workload of everybody, Bunglenotch?"

Holly now frowns. "Hey one, his name is Bundlestein! And two for your information Arthur and I have worked very well without any assistance!"

Chutney squints his eyes at her but Holly gives it right back now crossing her own arms for extra oomph to her glare. Arthur too had his own frown and staring over at the three elders that were acting more like young-lings than the actual young-lings in the room.

As the glare was on Bundlestein tries to fix the toys but only got one arm fixed, he then remembers Bigsby has a wand of mending and was getting the courage to ask him but Bigsby was cursing the lot of them and lifting a list from his pocket.

"All right, so the next one on here is Mighty Nein, I guess there's nine of them, well get to work on that! I'll be right back." Bigsby ordered before he is out the door.

Disheartened Bundles sits back down looking at the toy, fiddling with its arm a little. Thankfully Cranberry came to the rescue before Holly could get up.

"You know, I got a mending cantrip." Cranberry says to Bundles. "I can actually, here I--"

Bundles hesitantly smile and Cranberry. "You can? Oh, thank you, bearded one."

Cranberry grins before taking the toy. "Uh huh, you wanna touch it?"

Holly suddenly had a feeling she should be dragging her friend away from Cranberry.

Thankfully Bundles is a smart elf and lies quickly to get out of the situation. "You might not want me to, my hands are covered in fecal matter."

Cranberry, still smiling backs away as the toy reforms magically, now a mildly happy Bundles skips over to Klaus.

"It's all fixed for you." He hands it to unenthusiastic Klaus.

Before Klaus could be too sarcastic he caught sight of Holly's glare before looking back to Bundles. "Thank you, I appreciate it."

"Sure, w-whatever you want." Bundles replies before going back.

As he walks away, Klaus begins wrapping it haphazardly in kind of a sack that's crumpled together, the ribbons sort of wrapped around and then taped on. "Hey, congratulations Steven."

Everyone didn't really know what to say about the present so they got back to work, feeling more confident with the star on the tree.

**(Performance Check:**

**Chutney: 13**

**Cranberry: 13**

**Nutmeg: 22**

**Klaus: 6**

**Bundles: Nat 20 Again?!**

**Ellory:20**

**Arthur: 15**

**Holly: 18)**

Everyone's toys turned out perfect! Well except for Klaus but Holly figures it's to do with his lack of Christmas spirit and not wanting to be here in the first place. Klaus gives a sigh before putting the toy in a horrid wrapping ball.

"Here, Sam? Sam Hogg wherever you are, congratulations." he says tossing it away from him.

Once again a jingle at the door and Bigsby appears with a sigh. "Okay, listen, listen to me, I have been effin' elfing this workshop for well nigh 400 years. I'll be damned if we're gonna miss a kid, you understand? We need a little music for the extra edge."

With that, he pulls out the list again this time with teddy bears and or honey badgers with an assortment of hats in ten minutes which sounded insane to Holly until Bigsby went to the emergency cabinet and took out a fiddle that had holly leaves and berries dangling from it and beautiful green sigils all on the sides of it, and he begins to play a rapid ditty on it and as he does so suddenly Holly's fingers begin to move impossibly fast, looking around Holly could see that everyone else's hands were doing it as well.

Suddenly she is sewing bear parts together with an alacrity that is not natural.

**(Performance Check:**

**Chutney: 9**

**Nutmeg: 11**

**Klaus: 14**

**Bundles: 5**

**Cranberry: 16**

**Ellory: 15**

**Arthur: 13**

**Holly: 23)**

The teddy bears and honey badgers turned out fine though Bundles were a bit off never the less everything was done.

Bundles shrugs. "All I know is reindeers, I don't know any other animal anatomy."

Ellory looks over Cranberry's shoulder and tries to cheer him up. "I think it looks great."

Arthur smirks at what was supposed to be a honey badger in front of Bundles. "That's a great Elvis you got there."

Holly elbows him in the stomach making his cough and would have said something but Bundles spoke first before he could.

"Thank you, that's nice, but I know that you're just humoring me." he says looking away.

"No I like it, even mistakes can be beautiful." Ellory says with a gentle smile.

"Oh well, now you're just calling out my mistake." Bundles sighs drooping even lower. "I get it, I get it."

Cranberry looks thoughtful and says. "I feel like that guy would smell like cabbage."

Bundles look from the toys to Cranberry before smiling a little. "Heh yeah, probably, He definitely has a Fosteresque."

"That's a compliment though yeah." Cranberry smiles.

Bundles looks surprised by the comment. "Is it?"

Cranberry nods. "Yeah."

"Oh okay..."

Puts the fiddle down and walks over to Bundles station. "Oh, oh jeez look at that hair!"

He then pulls out this long, thin, green and red swirled wand and waves it over, and it does largely does what Cranberry did with the wand, and with a poof, the beard falls away and covers up the bare patches that were left of the sallow man's form, and it looks a little bit more like a honey badger.

"Well, okay, that did the trick. Congratulations elves! We just did the impossible, we have finished the year off; understaffed among a sea of puke! That's some good work there folks." He announces with a grin as everyone cheers.

Holly turns to Arthur with a smirk. "Your mom's hot chocolate recipe is mine now!"

Arthur narrows his eyes and was about to speak when someone comes through the door with the sound of bells and a belly full of laughter; If it wasn't the man of the hour himself; good old Saint Nick!

"Santa!" Ellory, Bundles, Chutney squeals.

"Ho ho ho ho!" he laughs smiling at all of the elves.

Poor Chutney chokes in his excitement, Nutmeg aided her station neighbor in patting his back.

"Chutney, are you alright?" Santa asks in concern for the elder elf.

"It is such a privilege!" Chutney coughs smiling up at Santa.

Santa tries to help by patting Chutney's back with his giant meat hand before looking back to the group. "Merry Christmas, one and all! I can't tell you how much I want to do the whole thing like Brian Blessed."

Everyone laughs, even Claus had a bit of a chuckle.

"But I won't do that." He assures them. "Bigsby tells things have been going swimmingly, and from the looks of it, he's absolutely right! Fine works elves, fine work!"

He once again pats Chutney's back before walking away and brings all the elves to him with his hands on Holly and Klaus's shoulders. "I know the last week has been hard trust me, this is one for the record books. I don't want to tell you what's inside of my master bathroom looks like right now! Rainbow sprinkles everywhere, ho ho ho."

The elves were horrified and disgusted at the image and once again sent a prayer to the missus for a swift and easy recovery.

"But!" he shouts waving a hand before taking out his mighty sack of holding. "We all got through this flu season and hopefully it will have finished going through us by New Year."

He starts to pack up the final toys that everyone had done, looking at the Foster honey badger he chuckles before stuffing it in the sack. Holly hopes the toy finds a right home where it will be loved and played with, if not a beloved toy for someone's pet.

Santa does the last of the packing, tosses it over his shoulder, and says. "Bigsby! Blitzen is ready to go, got fetch the rest of the reindeer; it's almost time!"

Bigsby does as he is told and walks to the door pulling out that brass security medallion again muttering. "Ah, if it's not one thing it is another!"

Santa grins down at Chutney once more. "Chutney, ho ho ho you spring chicken! How's arthritis treating those knees?"

not really wanting to hear this conversation, Holly goes and starts picking up the cocoa mugs, a little excited to finally have the red velvet hot cocoa recipe in her hands at last!

"Is everybody feeling good?" Santa asks bringing Holly back from her delicious thoughts.

Everyone but Klaus and Nutmeg shrug and nodded up at him.

"Yeah, all due respect, sir, we've all done a fine job." Klaus comes in. "I've watched and supervised these fantastic elves and doing it, we have completed. Uh may we please return to our original posts, sir?"

Well, Holly had to give credit to where it is due, Klaus certainly can be stubborn.

Santa sighs, apparently this isn't the first time Klaus asked this. "Klaus, almost, tomorrow we'll reset anew for the future year alright? Just stay here you never know when dropping something out of the bag just hang tight."

Klaus nods looking away.

Nutmeg on the other hand raises a hand in question. "Do-Do I- Do I have to go back to New York, to the Macy's or--"

He shakes his head. "No, that's all done, Macy's all done Nut. You can't go back there anymore."

Nutmeg sighs in relief. "Thank you Santa, thank you."

Bundles tilts his head in curiosity at Nutmeg. "What happened at Macy's?"

"You came back weird." Arthur added.

Nutmeg shakes her head sighing. "Just, it's too much. I mean, I got put in wrapping not even wrapping anymore, just to the bows cause I had a problem with the tape. I had an accident and just, the kids there, it's awful and all you know, fake yous Santa."

Santa very uncomfortably says. "Well, it's just about that time everyone! Sit tight a moment, I'm gonna toss the sack into the sleigh and check on Blitzen, but I will be right back! Christmas is here and you've all earned a little R and R, especially you Klaus you need to take a break."

Klaus looks at the Santa oddly before looking thoughtful.

"We're gonna have a toast in a second to a job well done! don't move a muscle."

And he is gone with the jingle of the bell.

As Santa exits the room they can all hear him on the other side. "Blitzen you beautiful buck! Are you ready to tear things up?! I'm in desperate need of fresh air after this week of misery and i-"

Suddenly his was gone and all of the elves froze.

"what was that?" Holly wonders.

Nutmeg looks over to the other elves. "Why's he stop talking?"

"I don't know." Ellory answers looking nervous.

Cranberry looks over at Bundles. "Hey, you know reindeers, was that Blitzen? Is he alright?"

Holly and Arthur tried to sneakily look through the windows but it was heavily frosted from the weather they were having.

"That doesn't sound like a good sound." Bundles reports, his ears twitching at the noises "I've only heard that once before, and it was when Rudolph was being mercilessly teased by the other reindeer. They used to call him names, it was awful."

"That was a bad time." Ellory agrees as the others muttered in agreement.

Arthur and Holly looks at one another and made their way to the door to see what the hell was going on. Bundles seeing his friend Holly runs after her followed by the others and Klaus readying to take his candy canes out just in case. Seeing this Arthur picks up a fire poker and Holly picks up her bow and arrows she kept by the coat hanger since she was going to go with the hunting group, what was left of it anyway to find food and maybe herbs, after work.

Peaking out of the door sort of like the dwarves in Snow White with Arthur on top, Holly then Nutmeg.

**Perception Check**

**Arthur: 10**

**Nutmeg: 3**

**Holly: 11**

Through this crack of the door that Arthur opened, Holly could see the sleigh about 30 feet away from the front door, overturned and on its side, and some snow just smeared and stirred up.

"Sleigh fell over!" Arthur tells the others over his shoulders.

Chutney frowns getting up shakily from his chair. "What do you mean it fell over?"

Arthur huffs looking back over his shoulder. "I don't know! It fell over."

"Where's Santa?!"

"Go and help the guy!" Klaus demands trying to push Arthur out. "Come on."

"We can only see the sleigh Klaus." Holly states.

"Oh come on, we could all lift a sleigh! Come on just a little bit of teamwork!" Cranberry eggs the others on.

Relaxing once again all the elves headed outside chattering among themselves as Arthur opens the door fully. Both Arthur and Holly see three-toed tracks in the snow front of Santa's workshop, making them both pause and look at one another with Arthur asking with his eyes that if Holly knew what they were, she could only shrug. Following the tracks Holly could see a few feet away from a, well a basin or something, there's a giant sack in it, and it is moving rapidly away into the trees.

"Where is Santa?" Bundles asks looking around.

"Are those Santa's presents?!" Ellory squeaks in horror.

Chutney blinks. "Are they stealing Christmas?"

Klaus rushes ahead to the sleigh and inspects over the edge of it... or he would if it were not the cackling they could hear above and behind them.

"Hahahahaha the fat man is ours!" the laughter shrieks.

"Hey! Holly shouts turning around and pointing at the voice. "Santa is Fluffy!"

What Holly saw made her gasp, followed by the other elves as they look upon the roof of the workshop; a witch.

"Elf flesh, so fresh!" She hisses as she leers out from under the brim of a tall purplish hat and purple filthy robes.

Her eyes hang sallow underneath, the teeth look mangy, brown, and covered with filth as she licks them staring at them all. Suddenly she makes a coughing sound and that was when off to the sides in the treeline are two more guys; there was a red dark-skinned figure with horns and a tail lashing behind them carrying some sort of metal staff with what looked like octopus tentacles, raking it across the snow menacingly.

The next guy, stumbling through the snow... was an undead guy with a long raked, grey sword dragging through the snow and the other hand just hanging limp and half of his ribs are gone just snarling towards the elves.


	3. Chapter 2

**I do not own anything but my character if I did I would be having the best days of my life hanging out with everyone and hugging Taliesin Jaffe but sadly I am not so let us keep this story rolling!**

**Also, I am only going to show rolls of skill rolls and saves since you guys can watch them on youtube for the full DND fun!**

**Initiative**

**Arthur – 23**

**Chutney – 22**

**Holly – 22**

**Nutmeg – 21**

**Ellory – 8**

**Bundles – 7**

**Klaus – 5**

**Cranberry – 4**

Arthur quickly takes out his short-bow, taking aim at the hag before hiding behind the decorative tree; It did hit the hag at the neck and just dangled there before she simply pulled it out from her neck and licks her blood off it before throwing it away.

"Ew." Is Holly could say scrunching up her nose in disgust along with others.

"Let's go!" Chutney cries out. "I haven't gone down since 1756!"

That old elf ran towards the red-skinned man leaving Holly blinking at the old man wondering just what the hell happened back in 1756 but shook it away for there were enemies among them and she needed to concentrate.

He stops a few feet from the fiend, breathing heavily as he waves his hammer and chisel glaring at it shouting. "Yeah, come for me!"

Holly looks around seeing who to pick before meeting the rotting eyes of the dead man, throwing her Hunter's mark at him before taking aim with her arrow casting the element of lightning onto it before striking it into the shoulder making the dead man dance a little before she to took cover behind a tree and takes another arrow to attack.

Nutmeg watching Chutney charge at the fiend alone casts mage armor on herself and runs after him taking out what looks like a branch and at the end of it there is a ribbon doing figure eights threateningly at the ready.

Ellory looks around for a minute wondering where to go; to Arthur and Holly hiding behind the Christmas trees to Chutney and Nutmeg heading for the demon? She decides to join Nutmeg and Chutney who nods at her with a grin and looks back at the demon. Ellory fangirls a bit inside at the smile before concentrates on casting blessing on Cranberry, Chutney, and Nutmeg, sad to say the scary witch notices this and pulls what looks like a skeletal arm of a baby out of her robe and points it at her as three little blackish-purple balls of light go whizzing out and striking Ellory into her backside.

The clothes on her back begin to singe and her back boils and burns a little bit on her backside making her whimper and bite her lip to make herself stop crying, with a little song to calm herself down. Cackling in victory she backs away on the roof trying to get out of sight of the other elves who were now pissed.

Bundles watches in horror at the pain that has been caused by the hag, collects as much courage as he can, and begins to climb the workshop as fast as he can! He makes up to the balcony but can's see the hag so he turns to the battle below and takes out a slingshot and a sharpened jingle bell and takes aim at the fiend who is still menacingly whipping his hentai stick back and forth across the snow.

Klaus takes his fighting gloves from his pocket, looking around at the circumstances, he looks upon the dead guy Holly had just made dance with a lightning arrow and grins.

"Oh, I can't have Holly have all the fun, I've taken a few of you out in my time! Come here motherfucker!" he snarls as he whips out his candy canes and charges the undead guy. "Come on mother-"

He reaches the undead and with his candy canes and bat them both sides of the head, and then bring the third one up underneath and the bottom jaw goes flying off into the distance of the trees. Klaus playfully points at it Babe Ruth style before looking back to the undead, soon to be dead guy.

"Now for the rest of ya." He grunts.

Cranberry runs over to Ellory seeing her a bit hurt from the dreadful witch, puts a hand on her shoulder, and casts Shield of Faith saying. "You know, I would not feel in good conscience if you didn't have some sort of protection."

With a wink they then turn to the demon and casts Toll the Dead onto him; two Christmas bells ring knocking the guy back and forth grunting as his whip gets wrapped around his own leg and backing up into a tree. Cranberry and Ellory cheer happily while Chutney and Nutmeg charge towards it in great confidence that they will take this guy down easily.

Arthur looks around seeing everyone pretty much got the other guys and Holly waiting at the wind to knock anyone from getting near him comes out a bit from the tree and takes a shot at the old hag on the roof again. The hag is now looking like a porcupine with erector set pieces sticking out and is spitting a little bit of bile and swearing at the young elf that now disappeared again laughing in triumph and gives Holy a thumbs up which she follows suit in reply.

The bearded devil, severely annoyed with getting caught with his own whip by a pair of stupid bells makes his way to Chutney cracking the whip twice around his head and slashes at him with three tentacles; the first tentacle rakes across Chutney's body and feels the little suckers attach themselves and leaves a stinging like from a jellyfish sear across his cheek, the second miss and the third wraps around his leg and yanks at him now feeling the burn go right through his stocking. He grins at the old elf winces in pain before making his way to Ellory and Cranberry.

Chutney growls watching him go after the young-lings. "Time for revenge motherfucker! Fell the wrath of a craftsman!"

He rushes at him from the side taking out his wooden mallet and chisel, planning to at least stab the bastard in the eye however with the damage to his leg he was too slow to dodge the kick from the demon and Chutney closes his eyes as something shifts inside his leg and disengages from the fiend grasping his leg.

Holly glares at the red-skinned bastard kicking the elderly and takes aim for taking the hunter's mark from the dead guy now that Klaus has him and this time placing fire onto her arrow for the irony and strike true on the leg that struck Chutney making the fiend hop a bit before placing the flamed leg into the snow snarling at the arrow as Chutney chuckles and gives his thanks to Holly.

Nutmeg takes her ribbon wand and began swishing it in circles on each side of her and stepping in it before whipping it forward the fiend and tries to send a firebolt at him. However since she has been in the human world too long she hasn't really got the knack of her magic and has a bit of an accident; the firebolt starts to stream away from the spinning of the wand but manages to catch the wand on fire a little bit and it spins around and she has whipped it, the centrifugal force of her whipping actually spins around and burns a hole through her hat and flies straight back up and towards the witch but she manages to dodge, unfortunately.

Klaus was a little distracted by magic gone wrong when the dead man comes for him taking his sword and raises it up and slashes it down at him. Too slow, Klaus caught a glimmer in the corner of his eye and catches it in the middle of his two canes, pulling them in and looking him right in the eye.

"Oh, you gonna try that again, bony boy?" He sneers.

Snarling the dead guy reaches over the sword and over the candy canes and tries to claw at Klaus's throat with his hands but Klaus manages to hoist the candy canes up and pushes his arm and he is just making the grossest noises at Klaus.

Klaus just laughs. "My turn next, asshole!"

Ellory with the confidence that she gained by being touched by one of the idols goes right up to the fiend and takes her lantern and hits him over the head yelling. "You're mean!"

Holly almost keeled over the sweetness that shrieked through the air.

She bongs him over the head with a war cry of yippee and the spirit of Christmas flows through Ellory's body and it glows brightly over the elves near her as Chutney, Nutmeg and Klaus cover their eyes from the brightness.

"Blinding!" Klaus cries out. "The light of joy!"

Wherever Santa Clause ism he's proud of Ellory.

The lantern strikes down and it flares from the four holes on all sides as green and red lights pierces the area and in the far distance Holly could have sworn she heard Santa laughing with pride and joy as the fiend's horn bends from the hit.

The witch not liking what is happening to her stupid coworkers starts to float over the field surveying the field for her next victim..

"O-Oh no!" Bundles stares as his target float away from the roof that he was climbing.

"She's airborne!" Chutney warns the others.

Not finding the elf that kept shooting the sharp legos at her is nowhere to be found she focuses on green and red-bearded one. Three more little black beads of hatred fly through the air and Cranberry doesn't seem them coming and crashes in their shoulders. Their beard starts to singe a little bit from the blast making Ellory gasp in horror that the glorious beard was nearly ruined.

Bundles, a little annoyed that he climbed up the house for nothing huffs and now arms and readies his slingshot towards her. With the blessing from Ellory, the bell flies through the air and smacks into the back of her head and the moment it does the witch falls from the sky and lands on the tree Holly was hiding in, forcing Holly to dodge the fallen witch and keeps her distance from her.

Bundles lifted a fist into the air and in his excitement jumped off the balcony and runs towards her and accidentally inhaling the stench that rises from her. From keeping himself passing out from her smell he simply hums a tune and thinking what he was going to tell his mother when he gets home!

The ornaments from the tree fall and shatter to the ground as the witch tries to untangle herself from the tree and tinsel.

As Klaus is holding the sword aloft in the air, staring it down in the face, he shoves the blade upwards and does a double strike towards the torso to try and bisect it with both sides. The first one goes wide but he reaches forwards with his other cane and doesn't succeed for there is nothing for his canes to catch. Frustrated Klaus tries one more time and this time takes out the other side of the ribs, a huge chunk and the only thing holding him up is this sort of umbrella stick in the middle, it's very precarious looking.

Watching the dead guy sort of go from side to side, Klaus began to feel a bit bored turns and head for the fiend that everyone but Ellory, Cranberry, and Holly has been trying to take down. The dead guy tries to swing at Klaus but misses by a while and Klaus just scoffs as runs back to the others.

Cranberry, seeing the hag fall out of the sky turns to everybody and says. "Oh no you guys, it's a witch! Looks like she came over from Halloweentown."

Holly lowers her bow a bit and Arthur stops thinking of what to do next and slowly looks over to Cranberry deadpans and says at the same time without knowing. "No shit Sherlock."

Ignoring them Cranberry continues. "It just won't do, you know? I gotta eradicate her."

Without another word, they walk over to the witch with their ax and begin to hack away at her with it. "Die, witch!"

The next thing Holly knew Cranberry is hacking at the witch like a jackhammer making the tree and the witch vibrate which disturbs Holly a bit before checking at the other creatures around them to make sure no one is getting a sneak attack on others.

Arthur on the other hand sees an opportunity and runs over to the witch, and hits her with the fire poker right over her head. With that, he blows a raspberry at the lady before heading back inside the workshop yelling over his shoulder. "You suck, lady!"

Holly... didn't really know how to feel about what she just witnessed from her friend and long life crush but simply smiles shaking her head before looking to the fiend and frowned as she watched it feel the bent horn with his free hand before leering at Ellory and snarls.

The fiend lashes out and wrap around Ellory's body and on her leg and pulls her towards him and through her body she feels a pulse, feeling a sickening wave go out throughout her entire body, and suddenly she felt very nauseous, as soon as he sees her convulse he laughs and just pulls it away.

"You hurt Ellory!" He roars charging again towards the fiend. "Eat it, sprinkle!"

He goes running in with his chisel and jams it down into his shoulder making the fiend howling at the moon in pain. Chutney pulls harder and harder as blackish-red blood just spurts upon himself and on Chutney.

Seeing how everyone has got things covered Holly runs after Arthur into the workshop. "Arty what the hell are you doing?"

"I am just getting the star is all!" he replies.

"You mean the star that only helps with good things rather than with oh I dunno hurting something?" She asks pointing out the obvious problems.

He rolls his eyes. "Okay first of all you owe me snowball cookies, two easy with those words, they are dangerous things, and three you have seen Cranberry and the others they need this star more than ever!"

Holly blinks in surprise. "You, you actually care of the well beings of the others?"

Arthur scoffs. "No, I wanna live, and to do that they have to get better at other things other than trying to hit them."

 _There he is._ She nods looking back to the door wondering how everyone is doing out there.

"You know..." He says as he pops the star off the tree and lands on the ground again beside her. "When you were shooting out there... it was, really good like the way you made the dead man dance was freakin hilarious!"

Holly turns back around and grins in amusement in reply to his grin. "Thanks, good aim at the hag, too bad you didn't aim for down her throat."

He pauses as he passes by, before look at her with a huge smile. "Holls you genius!"

With that, he grabs her by the shoulders and kisses her forehead before running out the door. Holly had turned to stone and is trying to comprehend what just happened. There were fireworks, Christmas bells, and maybe Santa laughing once more but in amusement all happening in her head before she shook it off rubbing her forehead.

"Come on Holls, Santa is missing, creatures are attacking and Christmas is way too close for comfort. Keep it together." She mumbles fiddling with her arrow before heading back out after Arthur.

Once outside, she sees the dead guy in two pieces, the fiend is burned to a crisp and everyone has surrounded the witch and it looks like she was saying something to Cranberry.

Arthur takes aim at the witch but is interrupted by Chutney's voice. "Do something useful, Arthur! Instead of just collecting unemployment on the couch!"

"What's that? can't hear you." Arthur shouts back, once again taking aim at the witch and shoots while Holly frowns at the old elf.

Just as the witch said the words. "Wormsack" the Lego gets lodged right in the back of the throat. Not actually piercing, it just gets lodged terribly but it does the job as the hag gags horribly before she crashes in the snow, dead as a doornail.

"Careful of the choking hazard!" Arthur shouts out with a smile.


	4. Chapter 3

With a sigh of relief, the fight was over; while Bundles and Cranberry looked for Blitzen in the woods, Holly walks towards the creatures pulling her arrows out of them and cleaned them up before putting them away, Chutney comes over to the fiend and takes a look over with Holly, what they found... was a little disturbing so she leaves him to the fiend as he takes hold of the hentai stick giving it a few swings while Nutmeg checked the dead and found pretty much nothing.

Klaus takes off his ‘Killing gloves’ and puts them away in his pockets while Chutney seems a bit too overjoyed with his new weapon but to each, their own Holly thought looking away.

Walking over to the sleigh as Cranberry and Nutmeg were trying to flip the sleigh... and failing miserably. Holly and Arty look over the tracks that were leading into the woods, the memory of the basin-like thing running off in that direction makes her believe that this is the creature that took Lord Santa.

“Santa has some magic when he lifts that, usually.” Bundles says to Cranberry as if trying to make them feel better about not lifting up the sleigh.

“I can’t find a fucking thing on the witch.” Klaus calls out. “She got worms!”

Holly scrunches her nose. “That... for some reason is grosser than the severed dick Chutney found for some reason.”

Arty gives a cringe in disgust and confusion. “That is gnarly.”

“Everyone okay?” Klaus calls to everyone. “We need some rest or are we going back out there? Cause it’s fucking cold and we got a missing fat man.”

Everyone got quiet as a few minutes have passed and all the craziness has happened, Holly still couldn’t believe it was happening. Santa Clause is nowhere to be seen, there are three corpses steaming in the snow in front of the workshop there were just in.

“Gotta find Santa.” Cranberry voices to everyone.

“We should probably leave a note for Bigsby when he comes back.” Klaus says to Holly who nods and makes her way to the workshop to get some paper.

“Well, hold on now, let’s just think about this.” Chutney speaks up making everyone freeze what they were doing and look at the elder in confusion and shock. “Santa’s out, the position of power is open, we could fill it and rule Christmas ourselves.”

Ellory gasps in horror while everyone else just stares at the old elf.

Klaus frowns and takes a step towards him. “Chutney, I gave my word to that man to protect this pole and the sanctity of what all you guys have been enjoying here in safety for a while-”

“Hold on for just a minute, though.” Nutmeg cuts in. “He’s onto something, always been a big fan of Chutney, someone’s gotta take his place someday.”

“Alright, Chutney, I'll tell you what, how about this.” Klaus begins in amusement. “Since apparently, our strongest can’t lift the fuckin’ bag to do Christmas, you go do it. Show us that you’re a better leader than Santa, huh? Go, lift the bag! I mean, if you wanna take over, you gotta be able to left your presents and deliver them to all the kids, right? Lift up the fuckin’ bag!”

“Alright, all right, all right!” Chutney makes his way gingerly to the Christmas bag. “I ain’t scared, but these hips ain’t what they used to be, but, I’ll try!”

“Are you lot fucking serious right now?” Holly asks watching this as Arty beside her pulls out his phone and is recording this on the sly.

With a shake of her head, she goes into the workshop to write a note to Bigsby and Mrs. Claus, also adding a warning about Chutney in case something happens and only Chutney returned.

“And a one.” Chutney grunts gripping the bag tightly in his hands as he gets himself ready. “and a two and a-”

Everyone watches as his little legs shake and low and behold.

“It’s a new world order, motherfucker!” Chutney cries out in victory.

Klaus’s look of confidence fades for a second before he shrugs. “Fair play old man fair play.”

Chutney grunts as he puts the bag back down. “Tell you what, how about I’ll just run the shop and we’ll hold auditions for Santa, okay?”

“I would like to actually find Santa, and not be looking for a replacement!” Ellory squeaks in protest frowning at them. “This is my very first Christmas and I really want it to be happy and merry and you’re all doing different things other than that, and I think we have to find Santa because I am scared; he’s my divine presence.”

“And the last time I fucking checked.” Holly speaks up coming out of the shop, glaring at the lot of them. “Santa ain’t dead, so even if you wanted to take over not a single fucking elf or thing in this town would ever listen to either of you!

Arty stares at Holly is surprised, he has never heard Holly speak in that tone of voice before... it was a pretty freak in hot thing to see.

“I think they are both right.” Cranberry agrees.

“Yeah and I think you are forgetting, Mrs. Claus is not dead, she’s still around, like Holly said if you try and take up the mantle, she’s probably gonna turn all the other elves who are still not dead against us”

“Not if we get to her first.” Klaus says.

Holly is not believing what she is hearing right now! Without another second thought, she takes out an arrow and shoots a warning shot in between Klaus’s legs making everyone stop talking and look over at the now severely pissed off Holly Snowflake who was now aiming with her Hail of thorns directly at them.

“Touch Mrs. Claus, and we will see how far you crawl in the snow old man.” she growls.

**Rolls for Intimidation: 16 +4 =20! holy shit!**

Everyone is wide-eyed as they take a step back away from her, never seeing this side of goody-two-shoes Holly like this before.

“Okay okay, I meant nothing by it Snowflake.” Klaus appeals to the girl putting up his hands in surrender.

Ellory, even though she would like nothing more than to cheer for Holly she was looking at the track on the ground that Arty and Holly were looking at before.

“What you looking at?” Arty asks getting everyone’s attention away from Holly.

“You guys, I can see right beyond the sleigh there are these claw marks, and they’re going off into the woods.” Ellory informs them. “Bundles have you seen tracks like these before?”

“Ah, no I am more the hoofed variety than those but I could hitch up the sleigh if we wanted to go by that than by foot.” he says.

Holly gives one more glare to Nutmeg, Klaus, and Chutney before undoing her spell and putting away her arrow before walking over to Ellory and Arty.

“Wait.” Arty puts up a hand looking excited. “Are we talking about stealing the old man’s car?”

“No, we are going to bring it to him!” Ellory corrects him.

He just grins. “Whatever you got to tell yourself. I’m into this!”

Cranberry grins in amusement, walking back to the sleigh. “We just all need to lift it a little bit more.”

“Yep, yep, I’m on it, yep!” He says excitedly as he rushes over to the sleigh.

“Of all the things to get excited and enthused over, it had to be riding Santa’s sleigh.” Holly snorts shaking her head as she joins in helping.

Arty grins at Holly who is now beside him. “Hey, when can we ever say we drove Santa Claus’s sleigh? What like we’re about Chutney’s age? Come on.”

“Tell you what.” Chutney speaks up again wincing a bit Holly narrows her eyes at him. “We’re so far behind on production, okay? We give him 24 hours and then he’s dead.”

Everyone grew silent staring at him.

“We follow the tracks ya?” he adds looking at said tracks.

“I like following the tracks more than your plan.” Ellory talks back, frowning at her senior before standing beside Holly.

“Let’s get a couple of people over!” Arty calls over the others. “On the count of three!”

And with all of them together they were able to to right the sleigh up to it’s normal position as Bundles goes to harness Blitzen to the sleigh. Klaus, feeling a little uncomfortable with Holly glaring at him and the other two went over to look over the area since he hunted the perimeter of the facility and the forest nearby. He kneels down to look at the tracks, takes the snow, tastes it, and then spits out in disgust.

“I made a terrible mistake tasting that snow.” He tells the other elves. “I’ve learned not to taste the snow around these tracks. So, let that wisdom sink in, let’s get on this sleigh and see if we can find the fat man.”

“What did it taste like?” Nutmeg inquires as Klaus steps near her.

Leaning over so the others do not hear. “Tasted like poop.”

Nutmeg blinks. “Are we fighting a monster of poop?”

Holly shakes her head, getting in the sleigh beside a very excited Arty. “I highly doubt it is a poop monster but after seeing these guys maybe just a very gross, nasty individual exists.”

“Don’t freak out the rest of the elves they spent a week of that back at the shop.” He says to Nutmeg. “So we’re trying to step away.”

“I just don’t know about this.” Nutmeg mutters looking from the bodies on the ground to back to the sleigh.

“No it actually makes sense, gets in the water supply.” Cranberry explains the situation with the other elves and Mrs. Claus.

“I understand what you are saying, but um excuse me, I was just wondering, have any of the elves that we know who’s been like super, super sick and like throwing up and pooping and stuff, maybe, like, is that like a similar poop?” Ellory inquires.

Everyone turns their head from Klaus and back to Ellory; Bundles rubbed at the bridge of his nose, Chutney was halfway asleep, Holly and Arty were looking on in bemusement while Nutmeg and Klaus were not looking too impressed.

Ellory sees the looks and shrugs. “I’m just wondering like is everybody sick? Is it all connected? I don’t know, but there’s a lot of really bad stuff happening at once, and in all of my journals and my studying of the workshop, none of this ever happened before. So I’m just wondering if maybe they’re all connected.”

“Yeah Klaus, tell us about your poop.” Arty throws in leaning over and grinning at the frowning Klaus. “You know the taste of poop. How much poop did you lick? How does this compare to the other poop?”

Holly snorts, gently smacking Arty on his shoulder for his snark.

“Is it like the other poop that we saw other people pooping?” Ellory asks, completely missing the sarcasm that came from Arty.

“I can say, with utmost certainty.” Klaus starts, snarling a bit at the giggling duo. “That my experience of not tasting of the other poop, no, I have no idea!”

“But we’ll remember that as we make our journey forward.” Bundles noted, adjusting his glasses before looking over to Chutney. “Oh no, we’re losing Chut!”

The old elf was asleep standing up, snoring as a little drool slipped out of his mouth. Klaus walks over nudges him awake.

“Ah!” He exclaims, alarmed and looking ready to fight. “I’m good, let’s rock!”

“On Blitzen, on Blitzen, on Blitzen, on Blitzen on Blitzen on Blitzen and Blitzen! Hyah” Bundles calls with a snap of his wrist.

Bundles starts driving sleigh and realizing Nutmeg, Klaus and Chutney hadn’t got on start running to catch up to the sleigh and pull themselves up into it without further delay while the entire town of Christmastown is either pooping, puking, or both, the sound of jingle bells leaves off away from the compound through the snow.

Klaus gets off the sleigh and climbs over onto the back of Blitzen keeping an eye on the tracks as they flew through the air on their way to rescue Santa and save Christmas!

After winding their way over hills, down into gullies, watching these strange tracks scurry along, and eventually, an hour or so of traveling through these woods, the elves reach a large glade in the middle of the wintry forest. In all the empty space there is five trees standing alone in a ring on a small hill perfectly spaced, almost as if by design, Bundles stops the sleigh at the edge of the glade.

“Keep your eyes about you.” Klaus warns the lot, patting Blitzen’s neck before leaping off into the snow and putting on his gloves. “We’re in no elf’s land.”

Everyone began getting out of the sleigh with Holly pulling out her bow and arrow, keeping an eye out as Klaus says. Cranberry looks at the odd ring of trees; they’re conifers but they look from a distance the same as other trees except that they’re so perfectly placed these five trees.

“Hmm.” Cranberry rubs their beard in thought but decides not to comment about it.

**Stealth Check:**

**Arty – (He doesn’t say but from the smirk Taliesin gives I assume) 20**

**Ellory – 13**

**Cranberry – 19**

**Bundles – 16**

**Klaus – 20**

**Nutmeg – 20**

**Chutney – 17**

**Holly – 18**

With Klaus and Arty at the front the elves almost like a little Roman troop, clump together, all this red and green quietly making their way to the ring and peer inside. Strangely, though they couldn’t see this from their vantage point before, on the inside of these trees were doors, all in a different form; one door is a colorful egg with beautiful patterns on it, the next is the turkey, a shamrock, a heart, and of course the last is an orange pumpkin which is slightly ajar and the tracks lead right up to it.

“It’s the fuckin’ turkeys -”

“You know, I was making a joke earlier.” Cranberry says interrupting Klaus. “About Halloweentown, but it turns out to be real.”

“Halloweentown, right yeah that’s it.” Klaus shifts his focus from the turkey door to the pumpkin door. “Right, the door that’s open, makes sense.”

“Smooth Klaus.” Holly snorts.

“Shut up.” he snaps back.

As everyone passes around field rations and Nutmeg takes out her candy-cane flavored cigarette, Arty pulls out his kids' toolbox from his belt and makes his way to the pumpkin door, looking for traps. Dropping to the ground in almost a plank position, flexing his abs as he can feel Holly watching him as he sees no signs of any traps and was about to start on unlocking the door but remembers that the door is ajar.

Quickly to his feet, he puts away his tools and nonchalantly says to Holly and the group. “I opened it, wasn’t a problem.”

Holly holds back a chuckle while Chutney looks impressed. “Damn, he’s proven useful... what about the green door? I hear the marijuana problem is very severe with kids these days.”

“It’s a real problem.” Cranberry agrees.

“Cannabis is the name!” Chutney says upon thinking about the name it was being called now these days.

“That’s kind of like magic.” Ellory comments, writing in her journal.

“I like hi-jinks as much as the next fella, but I think we need to go find Santa.” Bundles proclaims. “Come on guys I mean he’s our boss.”

“Right Bundlesmear is right, get behind me, I’ll take the lead.” Klaus interjects, taking out his swords.

“Oh, that is reassuring,” Holly mutters taking the back of the group ignoring Klaus’s glare.

“I almost had it to there with your attitude missy, leave that for our enemies.” He scolds.

“Whatever.” she replies.

“Hey.” Arty pokes Holly. “What is going on? Usually, that is my line.”

Holly sighs. “I know I just, after that whole thing with leaving Santa to his demise and making that comment about Mrs. Claus. I-”

“I know.” he says quietly. “It unsettled me a bit too, especially since he is supposed to be head of security and all that. However I do not think the old man would want you turning into the Grinch and I know that he is alright I mean come on, he’s Santa Claus Holly.”

Arty puts his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them with his thumbs in comfort as he looks into her chocolate brown eyes. “You didn’t hear it from me, but we got to believe everything will turn out alright so, get back to being the goody two-shoed badass that you are, and let’s go.”

She grins, putting a hand over one of his wrists, and nods. “Okay.”

“Okay, alright let’s go!” He tells the others who were trying their best to not listen in on the conversation while Ellory was bloody glowing in excitement as she wrote vigorously into her journal that only Santa Claus knew what about.

So the lot walk forward all clumped together, all behind Klaus as he opens the door they are hit with a wave and can feel the backs of their heads being tugged almost magnetically through the front of their skulls, and all the elves get sucked into the doorway!

Spinning, spiraling, black and orange swirls spin around the elves, twirling them through space. Holly felt herself getting dizzier and dizzier as Arty reaches over and grabs Holly while everyone else flies around them.

Giant skulls, pumpkins, and bats float by and suddenly darkness.

**Take a break everyone, get your food and drinks while you are at it!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Stealth check:**

**Ellory – 2**

**Bundles – 5**

**Cranberry – 5**

**Klaus – 16**

**Holly – 13**

**(They don’t say for Chutney Nutmeg or Arty so I assume in the 20s)**

Once again everyone starts going up the stairs, however, Bundlestein’s little pointy shoes are slick with gore and he slips on the steps taking Cranberry and Ellory with him sprawling on the landing once more.

“You know.” Holly speaks up getting the others' attention. “If this were like sneaking into a castle or something, we would be fucked.”

“Not gonna lie.” Klaus winces as the three get back on their feet. “We would be dead in a millisecond.”

Once everyone is back together they head up another flight of stairs where they reach another landing that has yet another door. This time Arty takes a turn at the door while everyone else braces themselves for whatever horrors lay behind the door.

“Alright, Arthur get to it.” Bundles encourage his fellow elf.

Arty, while rolling his eyes at Bundles, checks for locks and traps and found nothing and so with a nod to the others he pushes the door open. There is a big pine box sitting in the middle of a very empty dry room, and it’s dusty. Taking a closer look the box appears to be a coffin but thankfully didn’t look to be a size worthy of Santa... unless he was chopped into little pieces in the other room and placed here but Holly prefers to have the hope that Santa was still alive somewhere in this hell.

As Arty enters the room he sees the claw marks on the wall, just raked but it is the only defining feature other than the box. He creeps tot the coffin, nudging it with his foot to see a reaction but saw nothing, gently he lifts the just an inch and tried to look inside. At first, he thought it was empty but at the bottom of the box, there was a dark-colored blade.

Seeing this blade he looks back at the group before very gently take the blade from the coffin. In his hand lays a black, barbed shortsword with a dark iron grip, it is wrapped in a ratty black leather. On the bottom, the shape of a woman’s face adorns the hilt, with eyes wide and a mouth gaping in horror as he holds it looking at him.

He takes a long look at it before looking over at Holly with a grin. “This is my destiny.”

Holly rolls her eyes shaking her head.

“What is that?” Chutney asks.

“It’s Christmas for me.” he says smiling as he attaches the shortsword to his belt.

“It’s not very holly jolly.” Bundles comments looking at it nervously.

“Oh, it’s licorice.” Chutney realizes with a nod.

There was a silence for a while before Arty smirks. “Whatever you need to say.”

“Alright, Arthur got his present.” Holly turns around. “Once more onto the bridge Klaus let’s get moving.”

“On it Snowflake.” He agrees following her.

Once more a few flights of stairs and finally they reach a landing with once again a door on the left but to the right, there is a ladder that leads to a square hole in the ceiling.

Klaus looks over to Arty. “You wanna get a look at this Arthur?”

Arty shrugs. “Ya, why not. All right.”

Holly steps up, moving past Arty, and opens the door. “Let’s just get this over with.”

There are two lanterns in the room, the room itself has a greenish tint to it, there is a large cast-iron cauldron sitting in the middle of the room with one table that is full of glass bottles and a little Bunsen burner and the second identical table but smashed on the ground and there’s stuff strewn all over the place.

“... Okay guys I just had a thought.” Holly says looking back to the others. “You remember those creatures we fought back at the workshop?”

“Yeah.” Klaus nods along with the others.

“Well the witch said they worked for this Worm sack, could it be possible that the rooms we have been in, are theirs? Like the bloody room is the fiend’s, the coffin for the dead guy and this room is the witch’s?” She explains.

Everyone's eyes widen in realization. “Oh my god.”

“That explains so much.” Nutmeg says rubbing her face.

Holly shook her head. “This is insane you guys do what you got to do I will stay out here and see what I can do with this ladder and door.”

With that Holly does just that, though she didn’t touch it she did try to investigate.

**Investigation check: Holly – 7**

Holly sees nothing but the door on the ceiling and nothing dangerous so she waits for a minute before everyone came out of the witch’s room and follows her up the ladder. Holly finds herself on top of this treehouse and there is a wall on one side and it’s broken away on three others, and off in the distance in one direction, Holly can see the ring of trees standing.

In front of everyone though there is a gigantic iron pipe coming up out of the floor, about ten feet away from the ladder and it is wide. The one wall that hasn’t been ripped away, there is a door in the middle of it, and there is a moon carved into the door, and though it was quiet against the wind blowing through Holly’s hair she could hear something on the other side of the door.

“Pretty sure that’s the shitter.” Chutney informs the group. “So maybe we should--”

He was interrupted by the noise behind the door again, the elves look at one another nervously before Chutney put on a brave face and says. “I’ll check it out, you stay here.”

Putting up an ear against the door Chutney realizes that it is not entirely closed and he could smell the shit wafting from the door.

“Shitter.” he tells the others before looking back to the door. “This guy had something that did not agree with him.”

“Maybe the same thing that took the workshop out these past few weeks.” Klaus suggests looking to Nutmeg.

“You know what’s important?” Chutney asks them as he narrows his eyes at the door. “The element of SURPRISE!”

With that, he pulls the door wide open and everyone freezes at what was on the other side. It was a clawed bathtub on its side, snoring away with its tongue and teeth out with his legs twitching like a dog in sleep. Everyone stood in silence, frozen on what to do until Klaus slowly reaches for the door and gently closes it before looking over to Arty and nodding to the door.

Arty nods and locks the door swiftly.

“Well that’s one possible problem taken care of, let’s look down the periscope looking thing.” Klaus says hoping to forget the whole situation.

“Agreed.” Chutney says weakly.

Klaus holds the lantern over of the edge to see if the light can illuminate this below. It shows about thirty feet down, but it just gets swallowed up into the darkness further down.

“Maybe we oughta send somebody down with the lantern.” Arty proposes looking to the others.

“I have a lantern.” Ellory informs them.

Klaus nods. “Alright, you wanna tie a rope around you and lower you down?”

“Very brave Ellory very brave.” Chutney praises with a smile.

“I just said I had a lantern I didn’t say I was gonna go someplace with it!” Ellory frowns at the guys.

Klaus paid no mind as he puts the rope around her waist and began tying it at the back securely. Once everything is secured and ready, Ellory included Klaus pushes her into the hole, holding the rope tight.

Ellory holding her lamp she is lowered slowly down, the smell is really filthy, but there is just a hint of peppermint.

“Anything yet?” Klaus calls down to her.

“I smell peppermint!” She reports back.

“That’s a good sign, that’s a good sign.” He says nodding with the others. “Is there a floor, any sort of end in sight currently?”

“Peppermint!” is all they got back.

Klaus deadpans shaking his head.

“Doesn’t Santa wear peppermint?” Nutmeg asks.

“I think he does.” Cranberry concurs.

“It’s his favorite cologne in fact!” Holly adds.

“How do you know the old man’s favorite cologne?” Arty asks looking at Holly.

“Mrs. Claus told me.” She answers with a shrug. “She wanted to get her hubby a bottle before we sent it out to the sleigh for Christmas.”

Arty blinks at how nonchalant Holly’s reply was that she chats with the first lady of the North Pole like she is talking to her neighbor and returns to staring at the hole.

As Ellory gets lowered thirty feet straight down but suddenly her butt is kind of hitting a curve as it starts to go down a bit at an angle and just more darkness.

“Is it still dropping?” Klaus calls down again.

“Um, I'm sort of at a curve.” she says.

“So like a slide?” Klaus guesses.

“Kind of.” is her reply.

“Great we're coming in!” he says.

“Wait what?” Holly questions.

In a heart attack, Klaus lets go of the rope.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” They hear Ellory scream as it fades, everyone stares slackjawed at Klaus.

Arty grabs Holly and dives down the hole. “Let’s go!”

“What are yo- ahhhhh!” Holly screams follow Ellory.

All together Goonie style everyone goes down the hole and begin spiraling down the tube, up, down, sideways, loop the loop, eight little elves go flying into the air then suddenly they were a free-falling.


	6. Chapter 4

Waking up from the ride from hell Holly takes a moment to rub her head groaning at the slight headache she felt from the pull before taking in her surroundings.

Around her are five withered blackened trees, twisted and bare against an ashy haze of the sky. Set within each of them is a faded, filthy door fashioned in the shape of a heart, a shamrock, an egg, a turkey, and then the last, a faded, filthy, green Christmas tree.

Beyond the trees is a wasteland; The ring of trees the elves were in sits atop a glum little hill surrounded by a barren landscape of charred earth, devoid of almost any distinct features except one very obvious sight. Maybe close to a mile from where they were in another tree, not like the five they were amongst; curved, large, looming large on the horizon. There is some sort of clump or mass resting in its branches but it's hard to tell what that is from here, and as Holly turns and looks in every direction, through each of those trees, you see no other distinguishing feature in the landscape.

Holly moved to get up but felt something around her waist, looking down she sees arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace as if to keep her from going anywhere. Before she could remove them however they immediately let go of their a disappear in a flash hearing someone cough behind her she turns and sees Arty up and away from her yet she could see the red in the tip of her pointed ears. It takes her a moment to realize just who was holding her and feels her cheeks flush in embarrassment before getting up herself.

"Well, no Santa, time to go back!" Chutney decides, turning back to the Christmas Tree door.

Only to be stopped by Klaus who grabs him by the shoulder and gives him a look.

"We're going forward?" Chutney whimpers.

Klaus nods. "Yeah."

"How long have you been formulating this plan?" Bundles wonders out loud to Chutney.

"Look, I'm a realist, okay?" Chutney defends himself. "I read the landscape and I adapt! That's how I stayed alive this long."

"I- We all have been alive a long time." Bundles points to the group.

"Maybe instead we go look at the thing?" Ellory suggests pointing to the ominously large tree. "That's the only thing in front of us? I mean I don't know."

"That sounds like a good idea Ellory." Holly assures her fellow elf girl, giving her a smile.

"Bump in a tree? Sure what could possibly go wrong?" Klaus asks with a grin. "Let's do it!"

Chutney sighs. "Alright, who's leading this fucking parade?"

"Oh, I'll go out in front!" Arty volunteers with a grin.

Holly had to pause for a second, she has never seen Arty this... enthused or even this excited to do things other than parkour on building or eat her sugar cookies. She feels happy that she was seeing more of this side of him and maybe should take him with her when she went hunting or something.

"I will join you." she says.

"I'll get behind you two as back up." Klaus tells them, getting his swords out before looking over to Ellory. "Ellory, your idea you up with me?"

"Um, sure yes of course!" she expresses excitedly.

"Alright. Come on." he nods. "Let's go for a jog."

"Make me proud!" Cranberry smiles at Ellory who was just fangirling so much she is shaking.

The lot of them starts tromping through the dirty, blackened earth and as they walked, Ellory sees it's not as clear as back at the North Pole, but do see the occasional tracks in the ground, there is no dragging trail through the snow cause well there is no snow, however, she was able to pick up the tracks.

As the group got closer the large tree that they had all saw in the distance looks to be a large, bulky, multi-faceted treehouse. Like several shacks just shoved together willy-nilly, almost spiraling up.

Standing below this thing, a hundred feet tall or more there are iron pipes sort of wrapping around it, branching out. There are no steps or a ladder or anything around them, and cannot see a way in. Chutney hobbles around the width of the tree looking for anything from a staircase to even a blooming elevator and finds nothing of the sort but does see the lowest shack fastened to the tree, about sixty feet up, there is an almost like a round trapdoor or porthole, and a ladder hanging down from that only about three feet.

None of the elves would be able to reach it.

Nutmeg joins Chutney along with the others looking up at the ladder. "I've seen ladders like this before."

"Where?" Bundles asks in surprise.

"In New York, you know they only go halfway down, so you can't get in." She explains.

"I appreciate the practical construction though." Chutney comments.

"In New York, how do you pull them down?" Ellory asks Nutmeg.

"I think you gotta jump." Nutmeg answers. "You gotta jump and you gotta grab the last rung."

Klaus leans over to Nutmeg. "Can people in New York jump that high?"

Nutmeg shrugs. "I've never seen it."

Klaus shudders at the thought while Chutney tries to calculate every one's height and figuring out how to reach the ladder but they wouldn't be able to reach it.

"Maybe we could shimmy up these sons of bitches." Chutney says pointing at the pipes.

Cranberry clears their throat. "I'm pretty good at tree climbing, you know it's one of the divisions in the timber sports."

Holly crossed her arms. "Yeah but your luck today hasn't really been..."

"Trying to work myself up to it, you know." They continue as if not hearing Holly.

"Do we have rope?" Klaus inquires to the group.

"I do." Bundles says.

"How many feet?" Holly asks him.

"Fifty." he replies.

"Alright, we're ten short, anybody else?" Klaus looks to the others.

Thankfully yes everyone else had some rope on them Holly however went over to Arty and ties both their rope together.

"All right, tie that shit together." Klaus says.

"Is one of us gonna climb or all of us?" Bundles asks.

"I think Cranberry's gonna go ahead and take it, right?"

"Well, yeah, you know, when we're cutting trees down in the forest, we can kinda so a little harness situation." Cranberry explains.

"Alright." Klaus says and throws the rope over to Cranberry.

While Cranberry is prepping for the climb Holly leans close to Arty and asks. "Is the star still working we may gonna need it."

Arty pulls the star out and... the ticking that it use to have is no more the ruby is dim.

"Uh guys, the star isn't working." Arty informs the others.

This makes Cranberry fall off the tree. "What?!"

"Hit it!" Chutney shouts. "it usually works when you hit it."

Arty ignores the elder and looks at the star, seeing if there is another way; he knew about it because of the old farts and Holly, it was made in roughly the 600s, Bigsby's grandfather and Santa Claus made it, and it was infused with a very pure form of arcane energy and it runs on magic and the belief in Santa Claus.

Arty walks over to Ellory and places it in her hands. "See what you can do with this thing, I don't know."

"Would you still be laughing at how many lives these gloves have taken?" Klaus voice cuts through the hair, making Holly turn around to see he was talking to Bundles.

"How many lives?" Bundles asks nervously.

"637 prying eyes." he answers, dead serious.

"Holy shit." Chutney exclaims.

"Wait! You've killed 600 elves?!" Bundles cries out in horror.

"Elves, no." Klaus shaking his head. "Only three but do you know how many people try and sneak into the north pole every year?"

"Humans?" Bundles says.

"Mostly."

"You're killing random explorers?!" Holly yells.

"No no!" Klaus protests. "Killing thieves and burglars, and men who were trying to take the shit you guys have been building."

"We don't have a jail system? We don't have a--" Nutmeg questions. "You just automatically kill them?!"

"I always thought the December red snows were the natural phenomenon outside the house!" Chutney says, his eyes widened in horror.

"Can I also point out that there are no posted signs saying no trespassing or any fencing at all?" Bundles adds. "These people are just walking in?"

Klaus puts his hands out and shrugs. "Not my department, I have a job, distinctly set, and I do it well."

"Oh my god!" Bundles exclaims.

 _How many climate scientists fell to Klaus's hands?_ Holly had to wonder.

"I thought you all knew." Cranberry says. "That's where Black Friday gets its name; it's the dark blood of the snow, I thought everybody knew that! Has anyone tried to get a Furby?"

Holly shakes her head and returns her gaze back to Ellory who is holding the star gently trying to put sacred fire into the star. The glow from the light made her more beautiful than she normally does, there's a halo around her and then the light fades and goes dark.

Ellory frowns, saddened that her belief in Santa wasn't enough to bring the star back.

"It's alright Ellory you tried." Chutney says.

"It's just cause of the environment we're in, you know." Nutmeg tries to comfort the young elf. "It's just not gonna light up the fire in the star, you know?"

Ellory nods before placing the star into her pink backpack.

"Alright Holy and I are going to try and climb this tree, you lot do what you got to do." Arty says. "Come on Holls."

**Acrobatics check:**

**Arty – 18**

**Holly – 16**

Arty and Holly take ten feet back from the tree and does a run at it; Arty hits his foot off like one bracket around the bottom, and jumps, it moves about six feet, the pipe and then branches off to the left, he jumps off the little bracket and then hangs off of this, swings out, swings back to the right, and flips his body around, catches up on to ten feet up higher and then pretty much Nathan Drake his way around to the other side of the tree. Holly pretty much follows suit though does slip once or twice but with Arty right beside her to catch her the both of them pretty much synchronized going up the tree.

Everyone loses sight of them.

"Where did they go?" Nutmeg wonders.

"They died." Cranberry jokes, feeling a little bitter about how the two of them we able to easily get up the tree.

"No! They didn't die!" Ellory protests. "I need them to get married and have beautiful dark haired babies!"

Thirty seconds later Arty peeks around the other side shouting. "What's up losers!"

He is now hanging from one hand on the ladder like a bad-ass with the porthole hanging above his head. Using his other hand he ties the rope Holly made just start to wind it and get it going and drop it down before putting up his legs so he is dangling upside down grinning down at them.

Holly now appears as well and swings over to his side making herself comfortable to wait for the others.

"I will just grab the rope there Cranberry since you failed to climb a tree." Klaus says giving the bearded elf a look.

"You know I tried." They said crossing their arms. "I'm still working that out."

Klaus attempts to jump to catch the rope that was only eight feet above them, only to pull a hammy.

"Oh wow look at you Mister real good climbing that tree." Cranberry comments on the sly.

"Yeah, eating crow, a lot of crow in that mouth right now." Klaus grunts, rubbing his quad.

Holly looks over at upside-down Arty. "Crows?"

Arty shrugs.

"You gotta stretch, gotta stretch." Chutney tells him.

"Yeah, you're right, you're right." Klaus nods. "Learning a lot right now, a lot of lessons, I fucked up."

Nutmeg decides to give it a try, first stretching a bit first learning from Klaus's mistake as everyone cheers for her.

"You want me to give you a boost?" Cranberry offers.

"All right." Nutmeg nods.

The result was Nutmeg landing face-first into the dirt beside Klaus on the ground.

"I hate this place." Klaus grumbles with Nutmeg.

"Hey Burglenuts, it's time to get you fuckin' hands dirty, let's go come on!" Chutney looks over at Bundles.

"Wait, you are going to throw me?" Bundles asks. "But, I am much stronger than you, I think?"

"Oh really? Who lifted the sack bitch?" Chutney grumbles, frowning at the elf. "Get over here, let's go!"

"I don't know what I did to deserve your scorn!" Bundles whimpers.

Bundles sighs before taking a leap with Chutney's assistance and flies up and passes like five feet up above the rope and is just swinging back and forth looking down at Chutney.

"I did it!" Bundles pants. "I did it."

"Okay now climb." Cranberry orders.

"Up?"

"Yeah."

"I was more thinking of if he climbs down and we climb up to him." Chutney says to Cranberry.

"Oh that's a good idea!" Cranberry says before leaping up and grabbing Bundles legs.

With Bundles hanging there all the other elves were able to climb up his stockings and up his body going up. After a while, everyone looked like a monkey chain as everyone hangs from the rope as Arty takes a look at the door above him and work on the lock.

"So Ellory." Bundles begin, looking up at the girl. "Just curious, what do you know about like Judaism?"

"Because I said Oy?" Ellory asks, looking a bit confused.

"No, no, it's just my people encourage me to marry within the faith." he explains.

Everyone kind of laughs not really understanding what it is that just happened. Arty with one hand, this is such an amateurish lock, two moves of his lock pick, and boom it is unlocked.

Arty heads up first followed by Holly into what appears to be a sitting room or a living room, there's a really tattered moldy carpet on the floor and a red old soiled chaise lounge and there are slashed paintings hanging on the wall, and there are curtains but no windows.

"This is the coolest place ever." Arty says, making Holly give him a look.

"You and I need to reset your look on things that are awesome dude." She says looking back around herself.

On the far end, there are stairs curving up and out of sight. While Holly helps everyone up and out of the hole Arty tries and peek up the stairs without actually going up the stairs but sees nothing.

**Stealth check: Chutney – 16**

**Bundles – 9**

**Cranberry – 13**

**Nutmeg – 13**

**Klaus – 8**

**Arty – 25**

**Ellory – 1**

**Holly – 14**

The elves, though cowering a bit, climb up the stairs as quietly as they can though Klaus is grunting as he goes up because of the pulled hammy from before, but as Ellory is going and she reaches for purchase her hands rest on the side of the metal trapdoor and goes to left herself up and it snaps off as she's going and the other hears the loud crashing noises.

Holly grabs Ellory before she fell to her death as Chutney disappears into the shadows while Klaus puts himself in between the stairs and the other elves with his candy cane swords out at the ready.

"Oh, are you all right Elloroy?" Cranberry asks, reaching over and helping her in.

"It's Ellory." Bundles corrects.

"They can call me whatever they want." Ellory sighs. "Um I think I am okay but my pride."

"It's okay, I do not think anyone heard us." Holly says to the others, pulling Ellory out of the hole.

Cranberry looks around. "I wonder if there are lights in here, actually."

"I think you're graceful still." Bundles compliment Ellory nervously.

"Thank you." she says smiling. "I'd love to answer your questions another time."

"Sure." he says with a smile.

"Hey, Arthur." Nutmeg whispers to Arty. "You anything up those stairs?"

"Nothing yet." he says looking again up the stairs. "Not any movement I can see so far."

Klaus takes on e of his candy canes, hooks the kerosene lantern at the end of it, keeping the other candy cane at the ready before turning to the group. "All right follow me."

The lot creep slowly up the stairs till they get to the top of the landing, there is a door on the left, and it just continues to curve up further still to the right. Chutney goes to the door to see if it is locked or not, bending down on his teetering little legs and finds that it is unlocked and slowly peek inside.

The look on Chutney's face told Holly whatever was in that room, it was not filled with candy and toys.

He backs away from the door, hacking as if to stuff himself from throwing up. "Unless they made pasta, I think there are body parts in this room."

Everyone's face turns pale as they looked at one another while Klaus holds out the lantern into the chamber. There are seven or eight chains hanging from the ceiling with hooks hanging from them and the room is 30 to 20 feet, rough wooden walls that are smeared with faded red while on the ground not only covered in gore but in blood as well.

"What the fuck?" Holly whimpers.

Nutmeg takes a closer into the door frame and takes a better look around the floor, in the far corner where what Klaus just thought was refuse, there was a shape of a little green stocking covering a leg and a little curled shoe.

"I- I think these are dead elves." She croaks.

"Want me to take a closer look?" Bundles asks.

"If you wanna go look, but I feel like it's dead elves. I don't know I don't wanna get any closer." Nutmeg crosses her arms backing away from the room.

"I'm gonna go in, I've been calf-deep in worse than this." Bundles boasts puffing out his little chest as he walks into the room.

"Bundlestein!" Holly calls for her friend. "Being in a pile of shit doesn't compare to a pile of dead body parts!"

Ignoring Holly, he pushes through the chains crossing the room gingerly, and get a closer look, and looking down it is like the left half of someone elf-sized but with a reddish beard and a green top hat.

"There's bad news, guys!" He notifies the others coming back from the gore room. "It is a leprechaun and it has been bifurcated! But I think that's good luck? We might find a pot of gold? I don't know how the legend works."

"I really like your optimism." Ellory weakly giggles.

"I don't know if that's the accurate lore, but-"

"Nah sounds legitimate, I'll take it." Claus chimes in interrupting Chutney.

"Wait a minute, there was a shamrock door. So he came from the shamrock place" Nutmeg exclaims.

Everyone slowly turns their heads to Nutmeg, they knew she wasn't the brightest crayon in the box but they assumed that New York would at least sharpen her mind a little.

"I'm putting two and two together!" She states proudly before gasping in surprise. "The different holidays! We're gonna be finding eggs, Easter bunnies, turkeys, cupids hell maybe even... oh."

Holly thanked Kris Kringle that Nutmeg stopped her through the process.

"Thank the good lord that Hanukkah was not one of them." Bundles says, cleaning his glasses.

"Who would do such a thing?" Ellory asks.

"This Wormsack whoever that fucker is." Holly answers.

"Alright guys, come on." Klaus pushes the other along. "Let's ahead and move on further up the stairs here and see what else is in the place, alright?"

Holly goes over to the door, gives a little prayer for the souls in the room, and closes it.


	7. Chapter 6

**Acrobatics Check: Chutney – Nat 20**

**Nutmeg – 16**

**Klaus – 19**

**Bundles – 11**

**Cranberry – 3**

**Ellory – 13**

**Arty – 26**

**Holly – 25**

In very dark frigid air the elves plummet, feeling themselves fall to the ground. Chutney lands in a little old man splay like his legs were made out of rubber. Everybody else does hit the ground while Cranberry took the worse out of all of them by falling flat on their chest, knocking the wind out of them.

Holly looks over to Arty with a frown. "Why is it when we are falling or something you somehow manage to grab me?"

"Well, what can I say?" Arty groans getting up and smirking at her. "You have a magnetic personality."

Holly deadpans at him shaking her head as she turns around to look at her surroundings. Torch lights shine in the ruins the elves now find themselves in; to the left and to the right on two high broken walls, and beyond that an insane sight awaits.

A huge series of discs made of brass or metal, a gigantic tower stands above them to their horror they can see a large red object on the very top of the tower, it must be Santa!

In the torchlight, there is this strange corpulent form staring down at them, its flesh more of a vile, soiled fabric, almost like burlap. Red beady eyes glow from the dark cuts in the face of this thing, and as Holly's eyes scan over it there are rusty hooks and thick coarse string holding this disgusting suit together.

It cackles and something spills out of its mouth, but it is hard to see in this light.

"Well well well, What have we here?" it bellows. "An intrepid band of what, lawn gnomes? Here to take my prize? You're jokin', you gotta be! Well let me tell you something, I'm gonna cut this tomato of a man wide open! I wanna see if his insides are as red as his outsides. Come on then, put your fate in your hands, take a chance roll the dice! If you think you got it in you, but fair warning, the house always wins!"

After the burlap has it says the gigantic mechanical tower comes to life lights up, the giant disc starts to spin, and the different levels of it start to whir and clatter.

**Roll for the initiative, motherfuckers!**

**Arty – 22**

**Klaus – 20**

**Holly – 18**

**Ellory – 18**

**Chutney – 14**

**Nutmeg – 9**

**Cranberry 8**

**Bundles – 7**

Arty takes out his bow and arrow to take a shot at the creepy sack guy who only laughs as the arrow hits him, before dashing towards the staircase behind them. Klaus runs towards the tower of rotating discs and the moment his foot touches the metal ridge of it there is a click as his foot drops an inch and the column at the center moves towards him and there are two tall flat panels that open and a split second he sees this fluid clear bubble in the shape of a cube float out of the column heading right for Klaus. He is engulfed by the gelatinous cube, trapped inside it, though surprised he seemed calm to be suddenly be trapped in it.

Holly takes her own shot, placing Hunter's mark of the burlap mess from Silent Hill, and shoots an arrow right at its belly before running towards the disc tower reaching for the base of the disc as Ellory summons her spiritual weapon of a fruit cake and smacks it into the cube to assist Klaus in getting out. Chutney follows after Holly getting his weapon at the ready as they charge towards the disc tower getting ready to grab Holly to dodge whatever comes their way.

Wormsack laughs as he dances away out of view as two wasp-like creatures appear where he stood. While Nutmeg goes invisible and makes her way towards the tower.

Cranberry runs towards the gelatinous cube and looks over to Ellory and grins. "You wanna see what my spiritual weapon looks like?"

Ellory blushes smiling wildly as she answers. "Yeah, I do!"

"Okay!" the crow as they summon an image of the giant head of the brawny man.

A brawny man floats before the cube and whacks at this giant cube and takes off another sluff of this fluid just falls onto the steps and starts to burn the stone and then since it worked so well with the fiend last battle Cranberry tolls the dead with the song of Carol of the bells making the cube vibrates and groan.

Bundlestein gives out a cry and dashes to the tower along with the others.

Arthur now seeing how things are going, foils his plans. "Son of a nutcracker!"

He drops down to the little bit of refuse, running over to the wall in front of him and taking a shot at the cube before going into hiding.

As Klaus's body is burning and numbing all around him and seeing these flashes of divine energy around a kind of obscured by the gelatinous substance, he just angrily, like still focusing up at this Wormsack that is attempting to assault the person he has been working for, for a long time and just goes into a frenzy in the inside of the cube trying to carve his way through from the interior. As he starts carving through it with his candy canes he starts to chewing and biting in the inside of it, numbing his tongue be damned.

From the outside looking in there is a little spinning neutron in the middle of the cube and this thing is just wobbling on the outside.

Holly jumps over the meddle edge she had seen where Klaus has stepped and runs over to the chains before turning around and aiming a shot at the cube then turning back to the chain and grabbing it

Ellory's fruitcake hovers through the air as she cheers to it acting like a big scoop and hits it taking a big glomp away and Klaus's face is inches away from the outside and the cube is losing its consistency, losing its shape. She throws sacred flame on the cube and see Klaus's face and at the near end of this big mean cube Ellory puffs her cheeks and takes her fruitcake singing to it, and have the fruitcake cover the cube with all of the fruit until all of the fruit just poisons the whole thing because it lacks the Christmas spirit inside.

Pretty much the fruitcake destroys the cube setting Klaus free.

"Thanks Ellory!" He calls out with a thumbs up.

"Sure thing, thanks fruitcake!" She says to her weapon.

Klaus looks nervously around and says quietly. "Thanks, fruit cake... Christmas spirit"

Wormsack, seeing what is going down below merely laughs in amusement as he continues to climb to the top where he was keeping Santa tied up.

Nutmeg seeing how close he is to Santa Claus casts hastes on herself and books it to the base of the tower finally reaching the others as the invisibility goes away in her haste and tries to grab the chain though it slips through her hands. Holly, Klaus, and Chutney grab for the chain but only Holly seemed to get a tight grip on one of them and begins the disc from hell.

Cranberry, seeing the cube went and Klaus safe, heads for the tower to get a look at Wormsack and casts a guiding bolt at him, but with the moving discs and Wormsack himself dancing around it merely flew by his head. With a silent Christmas curse, Cranberry gets their spiritual weapon to move up a level grumbling as they eyed the chains.

Bundles himself grabs a chain that passes him by and begins to climb the chain and be the first elf to get to the second level. Before he could do his victory dance though, a little trap door goes poof sees a large spiked D20 coming out. Thankfully Bundles did a sort of a ballet whoop and fly right past him and there is a loud crashing noise as the gigantic iron D20 strikes into some piece of stone ruins.

"Watch out for balls!" he warns the others.

"No shit Bundlestein!" Holly shouts staring at the Iron D20 balls with wide eyes.

"Where? In your face, or where?" Chutney shouts up to him.

Bundles sighs. "Yeah, yeah they're just flying right at your face!"

"Okay." The elder nods.

"Now do you mean that in a positive or negative sense?" Klaus asks with a grin on his face as he watches Holly who was still hanging from a chain passes by with a frown on her face. "Like are we excited about that or avoiding it?"

"It was exciting." Bundles says.

"Sounds like Miami 1984." Chutney comments.

Before Bundles could say anything else he hears brittle, stiff little wings, and down from the disc above came two nasty looking wasps with long pincers coming out of the tail and two little mandibles snapping as they come.

"Oh no." he whimpers taking out his wrench.

Back down to Arty, takes aim at one of the wasps but unfortunately, the erector set arrow goes flying through the air and misses. "Aww, nuts!."

With that fail, Arty moves towards the disks right behind Cranberry.

Klaus after his fun with Bundles, looks up at this tower realizing it is a dangerous and difficult climb, as it's spinning and grinding and also the warning for balls.

He looks over and shouts. "Hey, Nut!"

"Yeah?" She snaps her head to him.

"You still, remember that trick back in the day?" He asks.

She smirks. "Oh, I never forget it!"

"Alright!"

"Get your ass over here!" She commands.

With that Klaus moves over to Nutmeg as the two begin planning their next attack. Holly pays more attention to the chain and climbs her way up, happily getting up on the second disk and just barely dodging the iron D20 that came flying at her.

"Whew, that was exciting!" She exclaims as she takes out her bow and arrow as the wasps turn towards her.

"Told you!" Bundles says with a laugh.

Ellory sees the wasps going for her comrades and moves her fruitcake up a level towards the wasps and tries to throw sacred flame at the wasps only for her to miss and she stands there pouting at them.

"You big meanies!" she yells that them. "I'll get you next time!"

"I don't need any magic!" He scoffs as pretty much all the magic users are suddenly missing their targets. "In my day, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and did things with our hands!"

He grabs one of the chains and starts climbing.

"We didn't have stairs!" Bundles mocks the old man. "We just climbed chains!"

With little to no effort, he gets himself up to where Bundles and Holly panting before squeaking as a giant spiked ball goes clanking towards him and leaps and feel the giant spike just graze the sack as it flies under his legs and goes crashing to the ground thankfully not hitting anyone.

"Only got one those left, gotta be careful." He mutters adjusting his tights before hiding behind the pillar.

Holly and Bundles face synchronizing with a look that says 'TMI old man, Tmi!'

Wormsack snarls at the lot of them. "Oh, you think I'm just fuckin' around?"

He climbs the rest of the way up before turning his back to everyone and for those who can see him, they watch as he raises his arm to the sky and there's a large black spike coming up out of it, it is oily, it looks like a carapace, and a cry of sorrow, hate, and horror as it then bends down and stabs into Santa.

"Haha, the power is mine." Chutney says quietly with a smirk.

"HOLY NIGHT!" Bundles exclaims grabbing his hat.

"It'll be a silent night if you don't hurry up!" Klaus snarls looking up at Wormsack with rage.

"This is not what I expected for my first Christmas." Ellory cries.

"Klaus." Nutmeg sighs before grabbing his shoulder to look at him. "I think it's time we do like old times, yeah?"

"Yeah, the one, two?" He asks.

"Yep." she agrees.

"Following suit." He says readying his candy canes with a fierce look in his eyes.

Nutmeg casts dimension door; and the two of them appear at the top of the tower with the two of them on each side of Wormsack and Santa and without further delay, Klaus goes berserk on the bastard!

First, he slams into his legs with one of the candy canes, shoves the other into his belly, and the sack flesh just dents in, and it just sort of roiling and moving.

Cranberry moves their Brawny man over to the wasps. "Fuckin' nature's assholes these wasps, trying to think you're bees but we know better!"

Brawny man misses the hit-making Cranberry growls before they grab the chain passing by and climbs it no sweat and finds themselves face to face with one of the wasps, they were just bad-mouthing and tries to whack it away with their weapon but misses once more.

Seeing Cranberry has a bad time Bundles goes over and bangs one of the wasps with his wrench like a boss as the bug smear onto the ground without a sound before heading for the ladder and scurry up. The other wasp heads straight for Cranberry and clasps on the back of their neck and the stinger just stab into the body as the wasp's wings wrap around the sides of her neck like a backward facehugger.

At that moment everyone hears a voice ring out from the ruins behind them, adjacent to a large outcropping of stone. "Enough! This has all gone too far! Release him!"

Holly and everyone turns and sees a pale, gaunt, figure crawling over the broken stone of this ruined tower. It's lithe, it's fast, this being's skin, as Holly looks at it is translucent and slick, and she can see a skeleton frame and large, misshapen Skull sitting there within the rind that is this creature's head, but the eyes are black, two round, wet orbs that are lidless and unnerving.

"I started this mess, and now we will finish it!" He roars as the muscles in his jaws which are like strips of ribbon candy sliding through milky water, stretches and unfolds and its mouth splits at the chin, unfolding horrifically, and a long, writhing tongue spills out.

"Wicked." Holly mutters.

"Holly, your Arty is showing." Bundles says to her making her face go red.

"Yeah, that was a lot." He says to himself and heads towards the chains.

With no effort he climbs up the chain and reaches the platform and lands right next to Holly, seeing the wasp in front of her he takes out the shortsword and takes a slice at it. The blade lets out a low hum and it just splits the wasp in two and falls onto the metal disk that they stood on.

"I love this place." he says smirking at Holly who smiles back,

Bundles rolls his eyes at his comrade as he turns back to focus on getting up the ladder.

Not a moment later another ball comes flying out of the trap door, smacking into Arty, and is flung from the platform and crashes to the ground.

"Arthur!" Holly screams as he lays prone on the ground.

"Arty, no!" Ellory whimpers.

The hallow king bends down low to the ground, and his elbows and hips rise above his back even, and he springs and leaps. He lands on the second platform on the other side of Cranberry snarling as he looks up at Wormsack. Though Holly was paying no attention to him as she has her eyes on Arty who is just starting to move his head a bit, shaking the dirt from his hair.

Klaus looks over to Santa to see that there are two huge puncture wounds on the side of his red coat and they are bleeding.

Seeing as he cannot do much in the healing department he turns back to Wormsack. "Ahhh that's my boss, asshole!"

With both candy canes out he tears into the sack, swinging the candy cane he flips it mid-spin, and the hook catches the blade, Klaus feels it pull and give and rips the need out and sees a bug come along with it; a long sort of like pupus just flies out and this half living bug flies and lands with a slurping sounding thud as more bugs come falling out of the hole.

The second attack aims for the face making the Sack bastard groans as he backs up a little.

"Make the snow red!"Chutney cheers. "Make the snow red!"

Klaus goes in for another attack to the face and was planning to kick the sword away from the sack only to see it is nowhere to be found.

"Oh, never mind!" Klaus shouts as he attacks.

With smacks to the face twice Klaus leaps up and hooks his two candy canes jammed into his mouth and pulls the mouth open a bit growls. "Say ah, motherfucker."

The smile stretches and Klaus just sees beetles just spilling and vomiting out the wider he gets, and he is grunting and laughing menacingly at the same time.

Without a second thought, Holly leaps off the platform.

**Acrobatics check: Holly – Holy shit NATURAL 20!**

She lands with a tumble without a bruise on her body and runs towards Arty makes eye contact with her and crawls a bit towards her as she readies a healing touch spell.

Ellory seeing that Holly is covering for Arty turns to the wasp that is hurting her idol and uses her fruitcake to get rid of it. The fruitcake flies over and just hovers and hesitates for a moment and then tries to go to try and hit this thing that is attached to the back of Cranberry's neck.

"Oh fruitcake!" Cranberry says feeling a bit lucid with all the blood the wasps has been sucking.

Just like doing a bank shot playing pool, the fruitcake takes aim and smacks the wasp. Cranberry feels the force of the tap and it hurts a little bit, but they also feel their own blood starts seeping down their neck from inside the insect that just got burst open.

Chutney is getting a little exhausted but he continues to climb the tower still. Getting over to the ladder he makes his way up and far as he can, what he plans to do when he gets up there who can say?

Wormsack tries to punch Klaus but keeps missing making Klaus laugh.

"That's right! what's wrong, poor baby? can't hit nothing can ya?" he sneers at the sack.

Getting the hooks out of the mouth, Wormsack slips away from Klaus and makes it to the ladder but not before getting hit by Klaus and slides down.

Nutmeg peeks over the side and throws chromatic orb at the guy but misses, huffs and takes out her ribbon, and tries hitting him with that but simply rat tails by his neck.

Cranberry, getting a little impatient with the climbing turns to the hallowed king and says cheerfully. "Hey, you know you seem super athletic, you take gymnastics, ya?"

Bundles could imagine Holly giving Cranberry the look of 'The fuck are you making conversation at a time like this?!' and funny enough even the hallowed king, snarling and looking intimidating as fuck had a look of 'the hell?'

"Okay if you take me with you when you get up there we'll do a little one-two combo punch, you know together if you'll carry me, yeah?" They say to the pale one.

The hallow king just stares at the bearded elf.

"I feel like you are giving me consent so." Without further delay Cranberry takes hold of the pale creature's waist, trying to ignore the peeled grape feeling as they hold on.

Bundlestein, having enough of Cranberry's schemes meets halfway with Wormsack. "Nya! Ho ho ho, motherfucker!"

Bundles just starts wailing on the bastard with his wrench across the head and watch as the sack-like dent in, seeing it moving underneath, and then he brings the wrench underneath and just jams it as hard as he can into his naval area. The wrench and Bundles hand disappear through a crack in it and he can just feel things sliding and crawling over his hand that is in there, but Wormsack is just hemorrhaging at this point.

Taking his hand and wrench away before running as far away from the creature as he can.

Arty slowly gets up from the ground to tag team with Holly who brings him into a tight hug and casts cure wounds. All of then suddenly he could smell gingerbread, potpourri, and Holly, he feels better, he feels firm again and he has a purpose.

Holly pulls away and looks up at him with a curious look. "Are you okay Arty?"

With determination, Holly has never seen before Arty pulls out his shortsword, looks at her and says. "Let's go save Christmas."

With a kiss on her lips he runs back to the disk tower and grabs the chain leaving a shocked and bewildered Holly blinking at the space he was at.


	8. Chapter 7

The hallow king leaps up and his arm reaches out and grabs the lid of the disk and just swings around and lands with Cranberry doing their best to hold on. He gets in and bends down low as both his hands elongate and the claws go stretching an extra three inches or so and slashes at Wormsack.

The claws rake into the belly and rip the gut open, and a gallon of insects just poor to the ground. Wormsack is staggering but still up and trying to get away from everyone.

Klaus looks over and sees Chutney getting onto the platform and seeing Santa with the wounds in his stomach and this look in his eyes, Klaus looks over to Nutmeg and says. "Hey, you got this."

He goes over and takes out his healing kit to stabilize Santa while keeping an eye on Chutney.

Holly comes out of her shock, face red as Rudolph's nose as she sprints after Arty and gets on her own chain trying not to look at the grinning elf.

Ellory follows after the two, squealing in happiness as she witnessed the kiss as she grabs onto her own chain, terrified for Santa but excited over the fanfiction she was going to write for Arty and Holls.

Chutney stands there, looking from Klaus to Santa; before a dark shadow cascades over the old elf as he moves towards Saint Nick. "He told me to make Voltron out of wood; no one wanted it. He told me to make a Game boy; I can't do circuits. He told me to make the little trolls, but the hair didn't move!"

As he mutters he takes his wooden chisel and stabs him in the chest. Staring as Santa bleeds he takes this opportunity to hide from Klaus.

Wormsack attempts to get away dodging the hallow king's attack as he jumps down to the other disk.

Nutmeg slide down the ladder and peeks over the side once more and takes aim and casts Ebeneezer Scorcher; everything has gone topsy turvy, she has just seen one of her co-workers attack Santa, on razor's edge, she is full of anxiety and rage and thrust her hands downwards and a torrent of flame spills down before her and the sack lights ablaze like the Wickerman, and all the bugs start to burn and crisp and fall away and Wormsack just falls into pieces, into lumps, into clumps and piles of insects.

The body of Wormsack falls, strikes, and lies dormant.

Cranberry has their spiritual weapon smash the pile of bugs with his transparent fists and the pile while attacking her own pile which did not go so well.

Bundles scurries up the ladder to find Klaus slack-jawed, staring over the body of Santa Claus, red stab marks all over his body as he coughs in pain. Klaus's knuckles around each candy cane tense, to the point where Bundles hears the slight crackle as little shards on the outside of it crack and break, dust kind of falling from his grip.

Bundles walks over to undo the restraints on as Santa moans. "Don't worry, Santa, you're still coming to town."

Arty gets up followed by Ellory and Holly and goes to town on the leftover bugs with his sword. There is a sudden wail of a woman scream coming from the sword, he looks at the bugs and will do nothing else but slay this pile of insects.

The hallow man stomps over and destroys the pile of bugs next to Cranberry, sweeping them all off the disk before making his way down a disk.

As Klaus grips the candy canes, he places a hand on top of the altar and in his rage tried to leap over it but his foot catches Santa's belly and stumbles and lands on top of Chutney. Getting off of him quickly Klaus readies his weapons at the traitor.

"Alright Klaus, think about it." Chutney says, raising his hand.

Klaus holds the candy cane forward and says. "Do you intend to finish what you started?"

"We could be rich!" Chutney tells him. "We could sell off the land, we could end the suffrage of the elves, we could be property owners! Think of the magic! Think of the magic!"

"What are you guys talking about?" Bundles asks nervously.

Klaus glances back and looks at the innocent eyes of this bushy-tailed if he had a tail, you know, an elf who looks at the world with such joy. He thinks of the sweet little Ellory with her twinkling blue eyes that shone in happiness and the love for Santa Clause and Christmas itself, and then there was Holly, strong Holly Snowflake who he felt will go places in the elf business and with that Arty at her side, those two could make ChristmasTown a better place.

He slowly looks back to the old withered, angry elf.

"Time to decide if you're gonna be a man." Chutney says.

There is a silence. "You know what these gloves are for, right?"

Chutney nods smiling in victory. "I do."

Within seconds Klaus charges towards Chutney he is able to hit him twice before one of the candy canes broke and became a dagger.

He points the new dagger at Chutney who is now kneeling on the ground. "So what's it gonna be?"

"You're a fool, Klaus." Chutney growls. "We can't compete with Amazon!"

While Klaus held Chutney hostage the spiritual weapons and Arthur got rid of the weak little bugs swiftly and the hallowed king reaches to the very top along with the others. Holly is already by Santa's side throwing all the cure wounds she can on him as the hallowed king reaches the top and sees what is before him, his lidless eyes widen in shock before its own hands reach into its own body and grab a rib right where its heart be and pulls out a bone which is just a jagged and sharp as the candy cane that Klaus is holding.

"That can't be good." Chutney whimpers.

A moment of silence before the hallowed king suddenly stabs him straight through the heart. With a cry of pain and another stab the hallowed king backs away and folds up his mouth before looking down at the now wounded old elf.

"Why." he snarls. "WHY!?"

"I've been underappreciated my whole life!" Chutney says. "I never learned any new skills, no one loves wood and metal toys anymore, I just wanted to be on top for once. I'm sorry!"

At that moment, as the bells jingle sadly from his weeping, everyone hears a slight grunt, and Santa is sitting on the edge of the altar, holding Holly's shoulder as support as Holly tries her best to help him. Cranberry and Ellory come over and began their own healing on him the red blood staining the red coat, but he looks better than before and looks around himself.

"What is going on here?" he asks.

"You were kidnapped, Mr. Claus." Holly explains looking up at him. "We are in a place called Halloweentown and we all were trying to take you back... but-"

"This bag of humbug here decided to go ahead and try and take the business for himself." Klaus chimes in for her, threatening the dagger closer to Chutney's neck making him whimper. "Planted a blade into your chest. And, well my judgment in the same judgment you've had me give a few times but ultimately it's up to you, Santa."

"Well, I think that." Santa sighs.

The pale one kneels down. "Wait, I am to blame. I started this mess, I mean to make amends."

Holly raises an eyebrow at this creature. "And how exactly are you-"

He takes the rib and places it on Santa Claus's knee.

"Worry yourselves no more." he says as giant claws go and reach out for Chutney.

Holly and the other watch as the pale one leaps from the top and descends into darkness.

"Nooooooo." is the last anyone hears of Chutney Chocolatecane for the rest of their days.

"Well... Shit." Holly replies flabbergasted at what just happened.

Klaus blinks. "Well, that makes it easy."

"Ho-ho- holy shit." Santa says making the other giggle quietly in exhaustion. "I was going to suggest that we put Chutney in the home, he's clearly worked too many centuries.

"There's a home?" Nutmeg exclaims. "You don't just straight up kill people if they do something wrong?"

"Of course not what kind of jolly old elf do you take me for?" he asks looking down at Nutmeg oddly before looking at his watch. "Goodness gracious, we have to get out of here. Everyone gather around."

Santa touches the side of his nose, winks, and suddenly Holly's eyes got misty and a group of clouds flutters around the top of this tower, and she sees Santa standing with them and says. "Follow me."

This large cloud spirals and zooms off towards the pipe that they all spilled out of from before. Arthur walks straight up to Holly with a grin, taking her by the waist making her gasp for a second, and the next thing everyone knew Arthur and Holly disappear the same way as Santa.

"Hey wait for us!" everyone else exclaims as they follow suit.

Seven sparkling icy clouds zoom up, up, up through the tube, spit out of the top of the treehouse.

They all see far below a white tub slowly marching along on the barren earth, whizzing back over towards the rings of trees, and you all shuttle right through the doorway firing out of the adjacent door in another dimension, and the lot spiral up and up and up into the night sky. So high in fact Holly finds herself seeing the slightest bit of the curve of the Earth, the stars above her, and the painfully beautiful shimmer of the aurora borealis hovering over the icy landscapes below.

Holly marveled at the sight, not seeing Arthur look at her with the same look at the lights reflected in her brown eyes and her dark purple hair floated in the air.

Then the clouds are spiraling down, down, down into the woods outside of your home, and before anyone knew it, almost everyone is standing on firm, snowy ground again, trudging through the trees wearily, the glow of lights winkling comfortingly from the workshop before you.

"Home." Holly whimpers a bit, holding Arthur's hands as everyone else nods in agreement at the relief of being home again.

"Come on, everyone." Santa says to his elves. "We can still make Christmas happen."

The front door of the workshop opens and Mrs. Claus is there, waiting for them all with a smile of relief. Still looking a little ill, still perhaps leaning on Bigsby's shoulder, who's is sporting a bandage around his own head. They're a sight, the two of them, though not as bad as the seven elves.

The sleigh is loaded up and the eight reindeer are ready and waiting; the missus and Bigsby have seen to that.

Santa with an unusually grim expression on his face limps over to the sack of holding, hoists it up with a wince, and then heaves it into the sleigh and turns back to the elves.

"Come here, you lovely elves, come here." He pulls them all into a big hug.

Klaus takes off his killing gloves and throws them into the snow.

"Attaboy, Prigman." Santa says proudly. "Attaboy."

He looks down at his wonderful elves. "Now, this was a hard night, but listen, listen to me, there is always a light in the darkness, my dear friends. Thank you for holding onto it."

With no warning, he turns with a jerk, and springs into his slay, gives a sharp whistle, and away they all fly, like the down of a thistle, but you heard him exclaim, ere drove out of sight.

"Happy Christmas to all and to all a goodnight."

* * *

It was a couple of hours as everyone returned to their homes, Holly on the other hand went to a little hill and sat down as she contemplates what she had been through with everyone including Arthur. She didn't know how exactly she and he were going to be like the next day, hell when school opens for their last year. Did he like her or was it adrenaline and the holy shit we survived syndrome and she was the closest thing?

With a sigh, she pulls out a flower and begins to pick at the petals childishly playing he loves me not and when she got to the last petal a throat cleared, spurring her she turns around to see Arthur standing at the bottom of the hill.

"Arthur? What are you doing here?" she asks him.

He simply smiles up at her and... begins to sing.

_My dearest friend_

_if you don't mind_

_I'd like to join you by your side._

_Where we can gaze into the stars_

Surprised at Arty's soft voice, smiles down at him with such warmth as she joins him, getting up from her sitting position in the snow as he climbs up to her.

_And sit together_

_now and forever_

_for it is plain_

_as anyone can see_

_we're simply meant to be_

Arthur Fizzlebottom finally reaches her, reaching out to grasp her hands together and intertwine them with his, leans down and gives Holly Snowflake a slow and warm kiss under the full moon and the north star shining bright.

**Happy holidays.**


End file.
